Twilight didn’t only catapult the careers of Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, the franchise also gave Anna Kendrick a high-profile role earlier in her career -- even if Bella’s snarky human friend had a small part to play. The actress, who was part of four out of five Twlight movies, recently recalled one big scene in the series she felt Stewart made much better. In fact, Kendrick confessed she wasn't helping much at all.
She has been candid about being part of the Twilight cast before, previously calling it “the world's most ridiculous day job” since the franchise paid for her room and board with her minimal role while she did the movies for “no money.” She’s also jokingly likened it to surviving a “hostage situation” due to the cold Oregon temperatures the whole cast bonded over. The latest from the actress regarding her time on the Twilight saga was her recalling shooting that graduation speech scene from Eclipse. In her own words:
I’m just OK in [the graduation] scene, at best. After we finished filming this scene, the producers were like ‘Oh, I thought you were going to do that thing you do’, because in New Moon, I’m like rambling as we’re exiting a movie theater and I end up going on this tangent about zombie movies and stuff that wasn’t scripted. They kept it all in and then they gave me this speech and they were like, I thought you were just going to do whatever with it, but I thought that because it was like a speech speech that I should just stick to the script.
Kendrick is referring to the scene in the third Twilight movie where the character of Jessica brings her personality to a high school graduation speech for which Bella Swan and her vampire friends are in attendance. She continued talking about it:
I mostly remember being like, ‘Oh, OK, the scene went okay. Like, I don’t know, maybe they’ll cut it. And, then seeing it in the movie theater, it really was one of those things where you have a better understanding of the role that editing plays, because everytime they cut to Kristen, she is so good and she is being so moved by what I’m saying. I can’t even remember if I was doing this off camera, or if they shot this on a different day or something. Like, either is possible. But, yeah, you do a little push in on Kristen and suddenly you’re like ‘Wow, this speech is amazing’ because she thinks this speech is amazing. I am doing the bare minimum. I don’t even know what I’m doing. It’s very mid, honestly. Cut to her and you’re like, ‘I don’t know, maybe Jessica’s onto something here’. So, thanks Kristen.
While the actress wasn’t too impressed with herself in the big and emotional scene, she felt like K-Stew really came through with her performance that made audiences believe in what Jessica was saying. Anna Kendrick rewatched the scene in Eclipse while looking back on notable scenes throughout her career with Vanity Fair.
The scene was an emotional one in the film because it came as Bella Swan was making the difficult decision as far as her life after graduation. Did she want to remain a normal human or stay with her vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen, and remain young (and bloodthirsty) forever? Fans of the franchise know she chose the latter, but not before having a wild honeymoon that left her pregnant with a vampire baby that her werewolf best friend falls in love with.
Anyway, along with Anna Kendrick going down memory lane regarding Twilight, the actress also spoke to how her famous Pitch Perfect cups scene came together and reminisced about working with Edgar Wright on the modern classic Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The actress’ most recent movie was the tense drama Alice, Darling, where she delivers a career-best performance.
Coming up next in the 2023 movie release schedule for the actress is Trolls 3, where she’ll reprise her voice role as Princess Poppy. Additionally, Anna Kendrick is getting ready to do her directorial debut for the crime drama The Dating Game.
