Anna Kendrick has gone full Hollywood power move by making her directorial debut with Woman of the Hour—but plot twist! She didn’t pocket a single cent. That’s right, Anna directed the movie and starred in it, but in a shocking twist that feels like the anti-Wolf of Wall Street, she handed over her entire paycheck to charities that support victims of violent crime and sexual abuse. Who needs a savings account when you can have a spotless conscience?
Anna spilled the tea on the Crime Junkie AF podcast, saying, “Look, this wasn’t some get-rich-quick scheme. Honestly, all the cash went straight into actually making the movie. Like, lights? Cameras? They’re not exactly cheap.”
But here’s where it gets real: the film had its big debut at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), a.k.a. the movie stock market where Netflix pulls out its checkbook like it’s shopping for overpriced avocados. “It didn’t even hit me until the week before TIFF,” she said. “Suddenly, I was like, ‘Wait a second…this thing could actually make money?’”
Anna’s journey to TIFF sounds a bit like showing up to your final exam after pulling an all-nighter. “It was just nonstop, like ‘Make the movie, make the movie, don’t miss the deadline!’ I thought I’d be lucky if it even existed. And suddenly Netflix is like, ‘We’ll take it,’ and I was like, ‘Oh snap, that means there’s going to be… money.’”
Cue the moral dilemma of the year: “So, I had to ask myself, ‘Do I feel icky about this?’ And the answer was… yup, absolutely. So instead of cashing in, I decided to donate it to RAINN and The National Center For Victims of Violent Crime, because, you know, what’s better than turning profits into purpose?”
And shoutout to Matt Murphy for steering her toward the right charities. Honestly, this whole situation sounds like the ultimate glow-up from Pitch Perfect—forget riff-offs, Anna’s out here winning humanity awards.
Moral of the story: Anna Kendrick’s not just the Woman of the Hour, she’s officially the Patron Saint of Good Decisions.
