Earlier this month, Anna Kendrick opened up on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast about the years of abuse she suffered while in a seven-year-long relationship. You can listen to her interview here. Anna is promoting hew new Netflix movie, Woman of the Hour, which is based on the true story of The Dating Game serial killer, Rodney Alcala. Anna directed the film and stars as Cheryl, a contestant on The Dating Game.
Anna appeared on another podcast this week, Crime Junkie AF. She mentioned that when she realized that the movie was going to make money, she decided to donate it to charity because it felt “gross” to profit off of it. The charities that she’s donating her profits to are RAINN and The National Center for Victims of Violent Crime.
In a recent interview, Anna revealed she actually didn’t make any money from the movie, as she donated her earnings to organizations that specialize in victims of violent crime and sexual abuse.
“Believe me, this was never a money-making venture for me, ’cause you know, all the resources went to actually just making the movie,” she said on the Crime Junkie AF podcast. “But it wasn’t until the Toronto Film Festival, where the movie premiered and it’s this big film festival for someone to buy movies, and that is where eventually Netflix bought the movie.”
“But, it wasn’t until like the week before TIFF that I thought, ‘Oh, the movie’s going to make money,’” Anna said. “Like, I was just so, I went from being like, ‘Let me know when the movie happens!’ to like, ‘Oh god, I’m responsible for this,’ and then I was just making the movie, making the movie, and then we just barely made the deadline to get into TIFF.”
“Then it was like, ‘Oh, there’s like money going to be exchanging hands,’ and yeah,” she continued. “I sort of asked myself the question of like, ‘Do you feel gross about this?’ and I did, and so yeah, I’m not making money off of the movie. The money is going to, or has gone to, RAINN and to The National Center For Victims of Violent Crime, which is a charity that Matt Murphy recommended to me.”
This is a really powerful gesture from Anna. She’s putting her money where her mouth is and donating to two great charities. Even more so, she’s making more people aware that they exist. I truly hope that it helps in her own healing process. It also makes me want to watch Woman of the Hour even more. It’s already out on Netflix, so I’m adding it to my list now.
Anna isn’t the first actor to donate the money she’s made from a movie to a related charity. Al Pacino donated his pay from his 1980 movie, Cruising to different charities because he felt that it’d be “exploitative” to the LGBTQ+ community. Brendan Fraser donated the money he made from his movie Gimme Shelter to the shelter that the film was based on. Beyonce did the same with her salary from Cadillac Records, donating it to the drug rehab center where she worked while prepping to play Etta James.
Photos are production still and behind the scenes images from Woman of the Hour, credit: Leah Gallo/Netflix