Anna Kendrick In You Magazine!

Anna Kendrick (aka Jessica Stanley) is the featured cover story in the June issue of You magazine!  Here’s the article on Anna, plus photos and scans from the magazine.  Anna talked about the Twilight popularity, Robert Pattinson, George Clooney and her many nominations from a Bafta to an Oscar for her role in Up in the Air.

Anna Kendrick slips without fanfare into the lobby of the West Hollywood hotel where we are scheduled to meet: some achievement given that she’s part of the teen-idolised Twilight cast, whose every move is usually accompanied by ear-splitting shrieks from adolescent fans. But Anna insists: ‘I’m one of the few who gets to leave home and not be followed around. Actually, when I do get children coming up to me, it makes me slightly nervous because I feel like I have to be on my best behaviour. I have a habit of cursing, so I have to keep it reined in. It feels like I’m visiting my grandmother!’
The Twilight films, based on the bestselling novels of Stephenie Meyer, centre on the love story between Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and the vampiric Edward Cullen (played by our own Robert Pattinson), who vies for her affections with Bella’s childhood friend – and werewolf – Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Anna, as Bella’s best friend Jessica Stanley, has one of the more fun parts in the film, unleashing all manner of teenage cattiness as she struggles with her envy of Bella’s popularity.

In truth, relations between Anna and Kristen are much warmer. ‘When I met Kristen, I knew her from some of her other films,’ says Anna, ‘and it’s so strange because she turned into my friend, and then just as quickly turned into one of the biggest stars on the planet. I’m on the outside and I really don’t know what to make of it even now. I can’t imagine what she and Rob are going through.’ Particularly as Kristen and Rob have themselves been dating since last year.
Fresh-faced and dressed casually in a striped blue top, jeans and canvas flats, Anna easily looks younger than her 24 years and is both chattier and more self-effacing than one would expect of someone tipped for great things. Because although it’s the Twilight films that have brought her wide recognition, Anna was Oscar-nominated and won Best Breakout Star at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards for her role opposite George Clooney in this year’s hit comedy Up in the Air. With the Twilight and Oscar madness of the past 12 months, she admits that, ‘This year has been crazy’, and it looks set to get even crazier with the release of the third of the Twilight films, Eclipse.
Bella and Edward were reunited at the close of the saga’s second instalment, New Moon, but Eclipse sees the chaste lovers facing new obstacles, with a series of unexplained murders and a malicious vampire threatening revenge on Bella. What’s more, she once again has to decide between the pale, brooding charms of Edward, and Jacob’s more muscular appeal.
‘It’s a film about growing up and making decisions,’ says Anna. ‘It’s a difficult time for Bella because at that age not only is she going through romantic confusion, but also she’s questioning what path she’s going to choose for her future.’
Of course, going through a romantic quandary with chaps who look like Messrs Pattinson and Lautner isn’t a bad problem to have, as the predominantly female fans of Twilight, or ‘Twihards’, will attest. ‘But seeing how much in love these girls are with Rob or Taylor, it’s kind of hard to understand,’ says Anna. ‘I mean, they’re like siblings to me now, and if I had to choose between them, it would feel really creepy. I’d have to think of them in terms of [their characters] Ed and Jacob – and in that sense, I’d root for Jacob because he never leaves Bella’s side. But having to pick one?’ She is momentarily flummoxed. ‘Well, I don’t think either of them is my type. I’d like a guy who looks a little more goofy and who is less intimidating – they’re both lovely, but almost too perfect-looking.’
Even without Anna’s vote, Robert Pattinson has no shortage of admirers (the ‘ROBsessed’) – teenage or otherwise. Mothers of R-Patz fans have proved themselves as enamoured of the London-born actor as their daughters: ‘Oh, the Twilight mums,’ says Anna, a touch nervously.
‘They’re a big thing now – and it’s not just in the UK, but everywhere. It seems like a harmless hobby, although it is a little strange,’ she admits. ‘Maybe the mums are finding a way to connect with their daughters, which would be sweet. But all it takes is one crazy mum to infiltrate that sweet circle of women and you never know what they might do! I think Rob is just as shy and freaked out by the attention as he seems to be – it’s not an act. He’s definitely not hard on the eyes, and I get why girls go crazy for him, but it makes me feel like saying: “Guys, really, he’s just a dude!”’
Anna witnessed plenty more female light-headedness when filming scenes with George Clooney for Up in the Air, the Bafta award-winning film by Jason Reitman. ‘We were shooting in a hotel lobby one time and every woman who passed by was just drooling over George and collapsing at his feet – it was crazy,’ she says. ‘It’s actually quite upsetting to see grown women turn into monkeys around him. I wanted to say: “Ladies, get it together – you’re embarrassing yourselves and our gender!”’
In Up in the Air, Anna plays a junior colleague to Clooney’s Ryan Bingham, a freelance management consultant who crisscrosses the US firing employees in order to cut their companies’ costs. In one brilliant scene, Anna’s character Natalie reassures her boyfriend that he needn’t be jealous of the time she’s spending with Bingham, because ‘I don’t think of him that way – he’s old!’
‘We actually filmed that scene on the same day everyone was drooling over George in the hotel lobby,’ says Anna, ‘which makes that line even funnier. If I’d been saying it about anyone else, I’d have felt really uncomfortable. But George had already made fun of me so much, I didn’t mind. He would call me “short”, so I’d ask him how his hip replacement was going. He’s so goofy, but a real gentleman as well. He’d be on set playing football with the crew, but he was also sensitive to the fact that I needed people to be quiet for my scenes.’
‘All the women were drooling over George and collapsing at his feet. I wanted to say, “Ladies, get it together – you’re embarrassing yourselves!”’
Probably because Clooney knew that he was in the presence of something special. Anna’s performance in the movie earned her Best Supporting Actress nominations in virtually every award ceremony from the Baftas to the Oscars, with Anna consistently losing to Mo’Nique’s show-stopper of a performance in Precious. ‘There’s no way of saying this that doesn’t make it sound like I’m just trying to be polite,’ says Anna, ‘but Mo’Nique gave such a humbling performance, that to see her win again and again didn’t make me feel bad at all. In a way, it took a lot of the pressure off because I didn’t feel that I was losing to a performance I didn’t admire. And I know it sounds cheesy, but it really was a dream come true to be at the Oscars – I never thought I’d get to be there.’
Born in Portland, Maine, in the US, Anna started acting at the age of six when she became involved in community theatre (her older brother Mike is also an actor). By 12, she had won the role of Dinah Lord, younger sister to the female lead Tracy Lord, in a Broadway production of High Society. She garnered a Tony nomination for her performance, making her the second youngest nominee in the awards’ history. ‘It was amazing to be nominated and pretty similar to how I felt on Oscar night. I have an idea in my head of what a Tony or Oscar nominee is like, and it’s not as if I’ve turned into Penélope Cruz overnight. When I got the Tony nomination I thought: “Wow, they’re letting me play in the cool kids’ club for a few hours.”’
During her Broadway run, Anna lived in New York with her father, William, then a supply teacher (her mother Janice works as an accountant). ‘It was great to have my father there,’ says Anna. ‘I hope they don’t mind me saying this but a lot of theatre children can be intense, and some of their mothers can be too: they would be there listing their child’s accomplishments and my dad and I would just look at each other.
Read more of the article here!