The Twilight film series is not exactly well known for being an achievement in the art of filmmaking. However, it did make massive truckloads of money. This was a very good thing for one of the, then, lesser known actresses in the franchise, one Anna Kendrick. Today the actress looks back on her time playing Jessica in the Twilight movies as a positive experience, not necessarily because of the end product, but because the series paid her well enough that she could live off of it, while doing other movies that she wanted to do, but that didn't pay nearly as well.
The series kept me in room and board while I did (other) movies for no money. It was like the world's most ridiculous day job.
The comment comes from Anna Kendrick's new memoir, Scrappy Little Nobody and has been reported by Vulture. While the exact situation that Kendrick describes here is certainly unique to her, it's a concept that many of us have been through. Lot's of people have jobs they don't necessarily love in order to make the money that they need to afford the hobby that they're truly passionate about. Many people have to work in cubicles to achieve this, Anna Kendrick had to act in a teenage vampire movie.
While Anna Kendrick got noticed by Hollywood following an Oscar nomination for Up in the Air, a film that came out the same year as Twilight: New Moon, the first Twilight movie was one of Kendrick's first jobs upon arriving in Hollywood. It makes perfect sense that she would jump at it. She apparently made significantly more money for Twilight than she did co-starring with George Clooney. It's not that shocking. The budget for Twilight dwarfed that of Up in the Air. They simply had more money to pay everybody.
In the end, it's probably appropriate to be thankful for the Twilight movies, if they hadn't kept Anna Kendrick fed and sheltered then she may have had to leave Hollywood and we wouldn't have the long line of great movies from her that we've seen since she became a star. It's good to know that something worthwhile came from that monstrosity of a franchise.
Anna Kendrick can be heard, though not seen in the current Dreamworks Animation film Trolls, and both seen and heard alongside Ben Affleck in The Accountant. Do you have a favorite Anna Kendrick film? Is...is it one of the Twilight movies? Sorry about the "monstrosity" comment.
