Anna Kendrick has a memoir coming out called Scrappy Little Nobody. I would shade the hell out of a celebrity getting a book deal simply because she’s “good at Twitter,” but at the end of the day… I might read this book. Like, I read Mindy Kaling’s books and I love them, and Anna Kendrick is “real” in the way Mindy Kaling is real, so I think the memoir will probably be pretty enjoyable. Anna sat down with the Advocate to talk about her LGBTQ fans and friends and how she would be really disappointed if a drag queen dressed up like her. Some highlights:
Whether she considers herself a gay icon: “Oh, man. I’m such a straight, cis, Boringface McGee over here, so I love that that could be even a little true. The idea that I’m resonating with other people who have ever felt like outsiders is the coolest.”
When she first became aware of her LGBT audience: “Well, I did Broadway when I was 12, so… [Laughs] Years later, when I got settled in L.A., I lived in West Hollywood, where I was a mini-celebrity because of Camp. I was basically in this movie that nobody had seen — except for everyone in West Hollywood. That’s actually where I met some of my oldest, truest friends.
All of her gay friends: “I don’t even notice it, but then I’ll think about my 10 closest friends right now, male and female, and honestly, they’re all gay. Gay people have just always been in my life. I remember my parents having to tell me as a kid that there were people, like some people in our church, who objected to homosexuality. I was like, “Wait, so they’re idiots, right?”
Her dream on-screen lesbian love interest: “Oh, boy. This is a really dangerous question. There’s a specific fandom that ships Beca and Chloe, my and Brittany Snow’s characters from Pitch Perfect, so I feel like it would be a real betrayal to not choose Brittany. I mean, our characters are pretty much in a lesbian relationship. As far as we’re concerned, they’re secretly in love. We’ve joked that there will be all-out passionate lovemaking in the third movie. Too bad we still need that PG-13 rating.
She gets girl crushes on celebrities: “Yeah. It’s funny, isn’t it? I can’t imagine how that manifests itself for straight men with guy crushes, but when girls have girl crushes, I feel like there’s this sort of puppy love that’s hard to explain. It’s not a grown-up attraction, but it’s not purely platonic admiration either.”
Being told that she’s someone’s girl crush: “It’s flattering. If a guy wants to f–k you, it’s like, congratulations, you have a vagina and a pulse. So if a girl wants to f–k me, I can actually feel pretty good about that.She hope no one on RuPaul’s Drag Race impersonates her: “Oh, no! Even I would be disappointed if I saw a drag queen dressed as me!”
While I do think Anna can seem a little bland and normal in interviews, I did find her charming here. She’s genuinely an ally to LGBTQ people and she sees her work as continuing to normalize/mainstream her LGBTQ friends. And it seems like she has a big group of, like, exclusively gay friends. She’s Grace Adler from Will & Grace basically. And are “girl crushes” really puppy love? I have a girl crush on Rihanna and Rachel Weisz, and it’s not puppy love. It’s like a visceral sexual attraction and, in Rachel’s case, adoration and jealousy that Daniel Craig gets to be married to her.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Her face looks a little different to me.
Her whole lil’ ole’ me????? routine reads as insufferably fake to me.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of hers but I enjoyed her in this interview. Seems fun and relaxed but not too overdone like other celebs can be.
Unless you’re someone like Malala, you don’t need a memoir when you’re barely 30.
I guess I never had a girl crush then. There are people like Carey Mulligan or Emma Stone or Grace Park who I find incredibly beautiful and whose personality I love, but there was never any sexual attraction there, or even puppy love.
Same. For me, it’s more that I admire them or even desire some of their characteristics myself rather than sexual attraction. For example, I definitely look up to Michelle Obama, and I would give my right hand to look like Kate Beckinsale, but I do not wish to sleep with either of them.
I like her a lot. She seems genuine and fun. But she’s at that point, as a Tony- and Oscar-nominated actor who works constantly, and has two hit film franchises under her belt, where she can STOP branding herself as a scrappy little nobody. Every actor is insecure, I get it, but enough already. Own your success and to hell with the straight guys in your dating pool who don’t measure up.
She’s entertaining enough.
I hate the term girl crush, though. You have a crush or you don’t. No need to qualify it.
They are two different things.
Girl crushes are the crazy puppy plutonic affections that women have for other women.
Crushes, you are correct, do not need to be qualified.