Anna Kendrick recalls ‘icky’ time director tried ‘power move’ in front of 100 extras

(CNN) — Anna Kendrick has recalled the “very icky” time a director tried to shame her in front of a room full of extras.

She went on to recall a story about an unnamed director asking her to improvise something, only to later criticize her performance.

The “Pitch Perfect” star, whose directorial debut “Woman of the Hour” is currently screening on Netflix, recalled the uncomfortable episode on the “Happy, Sad, Confused” podcast on Monday.

Kendrick was asked by presenter Josh Horowitz what the worst note was that a director had ever given her.

She told the audience that a director once went up to her after a scene, saying: “‘Hey, on this next one just try something, just like make something up… just improv something.’”

She said she did as she was instructed.

“Then the director came over and once again, in front of a hundred extras, went ‘oof, let’s go back to the script,’” she recalled.

Kendrick said it “really felt like a very specific power move thing, to gain dominance or something.

“It was very, very icky and then the thing that I improv-ed ended up in the trailer,” she said, to a round of applause.

“Woman of the Hour,” in which Kendrick stars, is based on a true story of an aspiring actress and a serial killer whose lives intersect when they meet on an episode of “The Dating Game.”

Horowitz asked Kendrick what it was about this movie that made her want to turn to directing.

She said that she had been “in a certain situation in my life”  when she received the scripts for both that and her 2022 film “Alice, Darling.”

She said: “‘Alice, Darling’ is about a woman in a psychologically abusive relationship and that was a pretty literal reflection of what was happening in my life.

“And this obviously isn’t a literal reflection of that but there was something in it that felt like familiar territory.”

Last year, Kendrick opened up about a previous relationship with someone who she said was “for all intents and purposes my husband.”

She told the hosts of the “Armchair Expert” podcast that her then partner – who she had since broken up with – would “scream” at her until she was “curled in a ball sobbing.”

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