Anna Kendrick recently opened up about her experience working with George Clooney in Up in the Air’ praising her co-star for the “complete fiction” he crafted to calm her nerves before filming the acclaimed, six-time Oscar-nominated dramedy.
Appearing on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?, Kendrick, who directed and starred in Woman of the Hour, confessed that acting alongside the Ocean’s Eleven star was “absolutely terrifying.”
Although she had earned a Tony nomination nearly a decade before filming the 2009 movie directed by Jason Reitman, Kendrick was in her early 20s and found herself working with seasoned stars like Clooney and Vera Farmiga.
“He is kind of capital G, George, and he works really hard to make you forget that and feel comfortable,” Kendrick shared. “The very, very first shot that he and I did together was my first shot in the movie.
We were standing on this people mover, waiting, with the camera pretty far away, and he said, ‘God, do you get nervous on the first day? I get so nervous. Do you get insecure? I get really insecure.’
And I was like, ‘Yes, I do, George, I do. I totally get nervous. I totally get insecure.’ He kept on, saying things like, ‘Yeah, I worry, like, did they even hire the right guy?’ Whatever.”
Kendrick recalled, “It wasn’t until years later that I thought back to that moment and realized, ‘No, he does not. He does not get nervous, and he does not worry that they’ve hired the wrong guy.’ Maybe he had those feelings earlier in his career, but it was such a generous thing for him to say that.
It made me feel like, ‘Oh, I can bring my anxiety into this space, and someone will hold that space and be cool with it.’ It really set me at ease—and it was a complete fiction.”
Up in the Air became a box-office hit and garnered critical acclaim, earning both Kendrick and Clooney Oscar nominations—hers for Best Supporting Actress and his for Best Actor, though they ultimately lost to Mo’Nique for Precious and Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart.
The film, deft in its balance of humor and drama, follows two corporate downsizers who are contracted to terminate employees amid a prolonged recession.
When Kendrick’s ambitious new hire proposes a cost-cutting plan to handle layoffs via video conferencing, Clooney’s seasoned, disillusioned character insists on taking her on a cross-country journey to demonstrate why in-person firings remain essential to the business.
