Anna Kendrick Recounts Psychological Abuse From Her Past Relationship

Actress Anna Kendrick has opened up about the similarities between her role in "Alice, Darling" and her previous relationship.

Over the years, the actress has starred in several films like "Pitch Perfect," "Table 19, "A Simple Favor," and "The Day Shall Come." However, landing the role in the upcoming drama thriller felt different as its plot echoed her former abusive relationship.

The actress revealed that although she had first blamed herself for the dysfunction in her relationship, she was later able to see that her then-boyfriend was to blame. Kendrick added that getting over the affair was the "hardest task in her adult life."

Read on to learn more.

In an interview with People, Kendrick discussed why her role in the upcoming American Canadian thriller film "Alice, Darling" deeply resonated with her.

Kendrick plays a young lady stuck in an abusive relationship in the emotional drama helmed by Mary Nighy and written by Alanna Francis. She becomes an unsuspecting participant in an intervention conducted by her two closest friends, Kaniehtiio Horn and Wunmi Mosaku.

The actress revealed to People that when she landed the part, she had just left a relationship that paralleled the plot of the film. She recognized at that time that the writing mirrored the inner turmoil she had experienced throughout the relationship.

"I was coming out of a personal experience with emotional and psychological abuse," she told the publication. "I think my rep sent it to me because he knew what I'd been dealing with and sent it along. Because he was like, 'This sort of speaks to everything that you've been talking to me about.'"

Kendrick described the abusive relationship, saying she had given it her all, even at the expense of herself, only to be hurt by the ex-boyfriend, whom she refused to name.

"I was in a situation where I loved and trusted this person more than I trusted myself," she added. "So when that person is telling you that you have a distorted sense of reality and that you are impossible and that all the stuff that you think is going on is not going on, your life gets really confusing really quickly."

Fortunately for the actress, she was able to see that the problematic relationship was not her fault, which gave her an advantage on her road to recovery.

She explained, "At the end, I had the unique experience of finding out that everything I thought was going on was in fact going on. So I had this kind of springboard for feeling and recovery that a lot of people don't get."

"Alice, Darling" gave Kendrick the opportunity to thoroughly review her former relationship. It also helped her understand better what had happened.

"It felt really distinct in that I had, frankly, seen a lot of movies about abusive or toxic relationships, and it didn't really look like what was happening to me," Kendrick said. "It kind of helped me normalize and minimize what was happening to me, because I thought, 'Well, if I was in an abusive relationship, it would look like that.'"

The "Up In The Air" star added that "her recovery has been so challenging" and was "the hardest task of her adult life." She also pointed out that sometimes her body still thinks it was her fault even though she is quite aware that the dysfunctionality of the relationship was solely due to her then-boyfriend.

In the interview, Kendrick shared that she was in no danger of retraumatizing herself by taking on such a script. She revealed that the production of the film started many months after she got the script, and by then, she was far down her road to recovery.

"It was many, many months away," she said. So I wasn't in danger of retraumatizing myself. But yeah, it's certainly a unique experience."

Sharing her experience on set, Kendrick admitted that she enjoyed forming relationships with the collaborators and exchanging personal experiences while they worked on the film project.

Katie Bird Nolan, Lindsay Tapscott, Christina Piovesan, and Noah Segal produced "Alice, Darling," while Kendrick and Sam Tipper-Hale executive produced. On September 11, 2022, the film will make its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.