After ‘Woman of the Hour’ Directing Success, Anna Kendrick Is Hearing From Filmmakers Who Didn’t Cast Her When She Auditioned for Them Years Ago

Anna Kendrick realizes she has a lot to live up to following the success of her directorial debut “Woman of the Hour.”

She is still looking for her next directorial effort.

“I haven’t found anything that I’m as passionate about because I think I really hit the jackpot with ‘Woman of the Hour’ — the script and the actors and everything about it,” she tells Variety at the LACMA Art-Film Gala on Saturday night in Los Angeles. “So it’s been very daunting to try to find something that I care that much about.”

The film tells the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala’s 1978 appearance on the “The Dating Game.” In addition to directing the film, Kendrick also stars as the game show contestant Sheryl Bradshaw, opposite Daniel Zovatto as Alcala.

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Kendrick said that her phone has been ringing more than it was before the release of “Woman of the Hour.” “It’s been really cool,” she says. “The coolest thing is some of the filmmakers who’ve reached out to me are people who I auditioned for 15 years ago, and they didn’t cast me. … It feels very full circle.”

Kendrick politely declined to name said filmmakers.

“Woman of the Hour” had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023. It was acquired by Netflix in one of the biggest deals of that year’s festival. After a year, the streamer released the feature on Oct. 18.

Kendrick appreciates that the movie has sparked conversations among women as well as men. “It’s been amazing seeing people talk about it online, and women who are talking about the way that it related to their real lives,” she says. “I’ve actually seen a bunch of women talking about watching it with their boyfriends or husbands, and the way that they’ve had to kind of explain what’s happening to them.”

She recalled discussions she had with her male producers while shooting the drama. “One of my male producers would say, ‘I don’t know if it’s clear what’s happening in this scene.’ And I was like, ‘Well, it’ll be clear to women, so I’ll take that chance,’” Kendrick said. “It’s been really fun for me to see women talking about how they had to explain to a partner what was really going on in the scene.”