A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep. No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true. Making many a Disney fan’s dreams come true, this Friday will see the release of Stephen Sondheim’s magical musical Into the Woods. Playing the role of Cinderella (although like you’ve never seen her before) and starring alongside an all star cast of Jonny Depp, Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, and Chris Pine, it’s made Anna Kendrick’s dreams come true too. We caught up with the American beauty to talk about fairytales, feminists, and what really happened once upon a time. The End.
Hey Anna how are you?
I’m pretty jetlagged. But I’ve been drinking lots of tea. The only time I drink tea is in London.
Have you had to do lots of interviews?
Yeah, but it’s been ok as everybody’s been really cool. The worst thing is when you’re frazzled and you get some really crazy question.
What’s been the craziest question?
The other day somebody asked me why I was this and not that and basically implying I had emotional problems. It was as though I had walked into a therapist’s office and started talking about all my problems. And suddenly I became all self-conscious in the interview and I was like, ”do I really have all these problems? Do I need to be on medication?!”
Well I’m just going to talk about fairytales and magic slippers…
Great! That’s fine then.
Without spoiling it for the rest of the world, I was really surprised by the ending…
It’s interesting because so many people I know are into the musical. So some people know what happens, but, like you, when I saw a production of it on tape as a little girl, the Bernadette Peters production, I thought the end of the first act was the end of the show. So it’s all happily ever after and then you have the whole of the second act.
How did you first get involved with it?
There was a workshop for it in New York, to present to Disney, and I put myself on tape for Cinderella. And because it was for the workshop, it was really low pressure, we didn’t even know if it was going to get made.
What drew you to the film?
Well it’s one of those movies that has so much going for it, I would have been happy to bring coffee to the set. Rob Marshall and this cast, it’s such a dream. It could have been anything and I would have been happy to be part of it.
What attracted you specifically to the role of Cinderella?
Cinderella is such a complicated character, especially this version of Cinderella. She is saying no to the wrong kind of love. This is a woman who has been abused all her life and she is being presented love for the first time and she still has the courage to say it isn’t good enough. And I think in real life that’s very rare. It was important for me to honour the strength of a woman who would do that.
I thought it was so refreshing to see such a feminist portrayal of Cinderella.
There was a point where I was looking at the structure of the script and the pace of the end of the movie, and I said to Rob, ”you’re probably going to cut all this.” And he was like, ”are you kidding? This is so important.”
Were you nervous about singing?
I was nervous about doing justice to the song, because it’s such challenging music. But we had such a great team there so if you couldn’t handle something you’d have ten people there to get you through it. We had a month of rehearsal, which was so great, because I used that time to feel more comfortable in the material so that I wasn’t always worrying about it.
Did you approach the singing in the same way as you would acting or do the two things require a different skill set?
Stephen Sondheim writes his music with such emotional range. If anything it feels like a sort of cheat sheet to the journey your character is taking. To me I didn’t approach it in a different way. If I approached singing in a different way to the scene work, I think you’d feel it. To me, it was important to feel like it was one character as opposed to ”this is me when I’m singing” and ”this is me when I’m acting.”
What was the vibe like on set? It must have been so much fun to work with James Corden.
Oh my god, I hate it. It’s actually upsetting how funny he is. It makes you dizzy, he’s so quick.
But you’re quite funny too, no?
He seriously kept me on my toes. If I was having a good day I’d be on it, but he’s just such a pro, he’s so intelligent. And he’s such a good actor. I know over here he’s so well known as a comedian, but the work he does in the film, it just destroys me. It was so much fun to film. I feel so lucky that I got to work with all the different actors. In an ensemble film like this you usually work with one or two people and you won’t meet anyone else. But with this film I got to meet loads of the actors. And James was such a treat.
Ok last question, if you could be any Disney character in the world who would it be and why?
Definitely Ariel. I was definitely one of those girls in the swimming pool flipping my hair back thinking I was all cool. I can probably recite the whole thing from memory.
The dream!
Credits
Text Tish Weinstock
Image courtesy Disney