Anna Kendrick joins the cast of her directorial debut, "Woman of the Hour" to discuss adapting the harrowing true story of a serial killer who appeared on "The Dating Game" in the 1970s. Watch as Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher, and the director/star dive into the dating show's disturbing nature and bringing a monster like Rodney Alcala to life while telling his victim's truths.
00:01I don't know if it's worse to audition and get the part or do something else
00:04and for Anna to be like, that's my guy.
00:07Of course, I'm the one that's right, but, um...
00:10...head's ready, back then.
00:12Live from the champion of the stages in Hollywood, it's the dating game!
00:19Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Woman of the Hour.
00:22I was really blown away by all of your very deliberate shots
00:30and cutaways and reactions that work to build tension.
00:35The work you did with your DP, Zach Kupferstein,
00:39stands out because every single shot conveys an emotion,
00:43whether it's fear or trepidation or embarrassment.
00:47Zach was incredible and so organized,
00:50but I spoke to him early on about the way that I hoped to use
00:56reflection and distortion in key moments.
01:00A woman through a camera lens or through a mirror or a car window
01:05in moments when she's being really missed as a whole person,
01:09in moments where she's being looked at but not seen,
01:13because it's tricky to put that across in a film
01:17without using a kind of established visual language
01:21of the way that a predator might view a woman.
01:26If I use his literal perspective,
01:29am I contributing to a normalization of women being objectified on film?
01:35It was just tricky and so that was a way that I wanted to attempt that.
01:41And then you sort of add in these moments with performance
01:44where, for example, Tony Hale's character seemingly won't look at me
01:49and will only look at me through the mirror
01:52and I keep trying to get him to actually just look at me.
01:55And that, I thought, created some fun performance moments.
02:01And I'll say that, you know, getting certain things across to the audience.
02:07Look, I'm biased because this is what I've devoted my life to for,
02:11you know, since I was 12.
02:13But I always think that performance is king.
02:17To me, like, the whole reason that movies exist is as a vehicle for great actors
02:23to give great performances.
02:25And I love that every department in the movie thinks a movie is a vehicle
02:29for great production design or great costume design or great cinematography,
02:33which is exactly as it should be.
02:35Of course, I'm the one that's right, but...
02:38I mean, look, Anna, you know, she's an actor first,
02:41so she understands what helps actors.
02:43And she made it clear that she wanted to do this section of the movie like a play,
02:49you know, like the show.
02:50So we did, I think it was like a 20-page scene of the whole sequence of the show.
02:56You know, Tony coming in, presenting the contestants and Anna.
02:59And it just felt like it was real, like we were there.
03:03Like, you know, there was no cuts in between.
03:06It just kind of flowed together.
03:08And, you know, that was such a smart move from Anna.
03:12I mean, I remember that set on that game show.
03:15And just, I mean, shout out to the set design, like the oranges and the pinks.
03:19It was very of that time.
03:20And they did a beautiful job.
03:22Yeah.
03:22But yeah, I think now that he says that, it was.
03:25It was shot very chronologically.
03:28And also just her angles that Anna chose.
03:31Like, there was one angle where she's looking.
03:33You're looking through the glass and you don't really know what's going on.
03:36So what I so appreciate that Anna did is it's the perspective of the victim.
03:40This whole movie is the perspective of the victim.
03:43And if anything, Rodney is kind of the B story.
03:47You know, the story that she wants to tell is like the victim story and the culture at the time.
03:51Right.
03:52Which is, you know, so fantastic.
03:55Bachelor number two.
03:56What are girls for?
03:58Why does this feel like a trap?
03:59I don't know.
04:00Why does it?
04:01How did we as a society allow the dating game to happen?
04:04Oh my God.
04:05I mean, truly, that's the.
04:07Great question.
04:09It's really, really horrific to think that a serial killer made it on that show.
04:15I mean, but I think, you know, thankfully, I don't think and I hope that wouldn't happen today.
04:21But in many ways, there's still.
04:23Stranger things, you know.
04:24Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's still just like so many ways in which we still have so many steps to move forward even now.
04:32Yeah.
04:33In terms of just like honoring people's instincts and also listening to people when they're when they're raising alarm about something and taking it seriously or at least investigating.
04:45And, yeah, it's it's pretty devastating to think that that actually happened.
04:49I mean, I'm a kid of the 70s.
04:51So I remember this show.
04:53I remember seeing it.
04:55Yeah.
04:56I remember vaguely hearing about this specific story.
04:58But then it wasn't really until this that I obviously did a deep dive on all the facts.
05:04But man, just the just the allowance and the acceptance of a lot that was said.
05:11You know, my character, Ed Birch, you know, offstage, he was obviously incredibly demoralizing to women and objectifying.
05:21And he had his onstage presence, but he couldn't help but like that offstage bleed into it.
05:27You know, just like little remarks he would make.
05:30And just also that his detachment.
05:33I would, you know, I went on YouTube and just watched not just him, but a lot of hosts.
05:38There was just this kind of rhythm of their speech.
05:40And it was kind of like, you know, welcome to the dating game.
05:43Da, da, da, da, da.
05:43Like it was kind of a character that he put on, which just kind of fed into that whole detachment from humanity, you know, that I saw.
05:52Anyways.
05:53You know, I mean, I don't know how Pat Sajak did it for as long as he did.
05:56Man, but like, I mean, it's it has morphed.
05:59You know, thankfully, thankfully, we've gotten a lot better as a society.
06:04We've got a long way to go.
06:05But just you look back at that time and it's just crazy.
06:09They were talking about the 70s.
06:11You know what I'm saying?
06:12There was there was there was no phone with swiping then.
06:15So I guess you got to go to national television to find love.
06:21Hey, it's it's still it.
06:22Listen, man, it's still happening.
06:23There's so many dating games nowadays.
06:25But the fact that he had the courage to, you know, be on national television, knowing the things that he knew that he had done, I feel like for him was just like a power move.
06:37Right.
06:38Just present yourself to the world, to the nation.
06:40And yet, you know, you're doing, you know, horrible crimes.
06:43So it just plays on who he was as a person, I think.
06:48No matter what words they use, the question beneath the question remains the same.
06:52What's the question?
06:53Which one of you will hurt me?
06:56There's an element of this movie that involves auditioning and being right for the role.
07:00And so when you go out for the role of serial killer and then you get it, is there an element that makes you think like, why am I the right guy to play serial killer?
07:09It actually gets worse, dude.
07:11So I didn't audition for this.
07:14Anna saw me in, and she told me this, Anna saw me in a series that I did, Station Eleven.
07:22And when she saw it, she was like, that's Rodney.
07:26So I don't know what's worse, man.
07:28I don't know if it's worse to audition and get the part or do something else and for Anna to be like, that's my guy.
07:34Yeah, I mean, look, it's definitely as an actor, something that I always kind of wanted to do.
07:39You know, it's just fun, you know, studying their psychology and studying their life and building a character around it.
07:47It's all awesome.
07:49So here we are, man.
07:51I did it.
07:53Excuse me, man.
07:55Can you give us another round?
08:00There were certain visual things that felt important to me.
08:07You know, I remember when I was pitching myself, I think I talked about the parking lot sequence at the end and how I could imagine this frame where, you know,
08:17you kind of see Cheryl and Rodney and it's, you know, the expanse of the isolation that they're in in that moment and knowing that even if Cheryl ran for it,
08:29she wouldn't even make it out of the frame before Rodney was on top of her, you know, and really giving you that visceral sense of the kind of physical danger that she's in.
08:39You know, then on the other hand, I think about the tiki bar and while there were, you know, very specific visual and production design things that felt important in that scene,
08:49I changed that, some of that scene, like the night before we shot it to just make it like significantly more subtle.
08:59And I think if you read that scene on paper, it would sort of feel like a scene where nothing happens.
09:03And I was really, really trusting that Daniel Zavato, who is extraordinary in the movie, and I would be able to make something happen that felt really grounded,
09:18but also really, really real and present.
09:21That's good, I'm into that.
09:22You know, what's sort of miraculous about Anna is the conversations we had on set were about the character.
09:32They were, you know, sometimes about technically what she needed for a shot.
09:36And from my perspective, it's all just about storytelling, you know, as if it were a play.
09:40And when I saw the movie, I think I really understood the depth of how specific and how intentional she was with each moment.
09:48I mean, the way silence is used, the way the music is used, each shot, it's, it kind of blew me away.
09:56We filmed this movie two years ago, and I saw it two months ago.
09:59And to get to watch it and really feel like such a fan of it, and that's because of her intentionality.
10:05She really, I cannot believe this was her first film as a director.
10:10She's, she's remarkable.
10:11And it was surprising, because I remember we had to do a reshoot or, or we added a day or something like that.
10:18But she showed me for the first time, like, I think the, the beginning of the movie, like the first, like three minutes.
10:26And I was like, I love it.
10:28You know, I love what you did here because you're, like you said, you're, you're staying with the characters for maybe an extra two seconds.
10:36But that really conveys the whole thing, right?
10:40And I mean, I personally think that cinema should do that more.
10:43I feel like we cut too quick in a lot of things.
10:47And so seeing it was a surprise.
10:50There was no discussion prior.
10:51And I was actually like, yes, Anna, like that's, that's, that's awesome.
10:56I mean, obviously it's a very fragile story to tell.
10:58So everybody wanted to, you know, feel like whoever's captaining the ship knows what they want.
11:03It's, it's a safe space and she just really did amazing with that.
11:08So what do you say?
11:15Autumn, I can't not talk about the final scene.
11:18I mean, it's everything that the movie builds up to.
11:21And so I just need to get your reaction to just seeing the final shot of the film and maybe what was going through your head and, and, and what you remember about, about filming that sequence.
11:30Yeah.
11:31Yeah.
11:31Um, when I really, when it really dawned on me that I was going to be like the final frame of the film, it stressed me out a little bit.
11:41Honestly, it was a lot of responsibility.
11:42I was like, what do you mean the final frame of the film?
11:44Um, but Anna was so good at reassuring me that I was the person for the job, you know, and, and without her being there to help me feel confident in myself as an actor and as a person, I definitely, I don't think I could have gotten to a place where I felt comfortable enough to really release and like let everything go, you know?
12:07And, and we shot that very final clip of just the breathing on a separate day from everything else.
12:13And so it was just a full, probably 10 minutes of me just working myself up in like to get to that moment.
12:23And we shot it all in a series and it was just, Anna was like, we'll just keep rolling until you feel like you've really let it all out.
12:32And it was just really beautiful.
12:34It was, it felt really natural too, to, to kind of let that be a release of everything that happens in the film.
12:40And as an actor, it was very therapeutic to let everything go.
12:44And yeah, Anna, Anna was just so helpful in, in allowing me to take the space and the time that I needed to get there for that final moment.
12:54And I think it, yeah, I'm, I'm just really proud of how it turned out.
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