Pitch Perfect Movie Interviews – Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Elizabeth Banks and More!
[Music] I I guess talk about how this one started for you well um I think we both got this script pretty much at the same time it was about three years ago and I didn’t end up trying out for it until like a year later but reading it three years ago I think I was just shocked at how intelligent the movie was and and how I feel like the humor was was um it was complimentary of of people who are you know now getting movies that are smarter and smarter and it wasn’t like over the top and slapstick it was actually really grounded in in this comedy that I think is really smart and so I I really gravitated towards it and then ended up trying out for it two years later I audition and and I got to get in the movie and I was very excited about that I sung Sarah mclin’s ice cream which was a song that didn’t get in the movie but it was supposed to be cuz it was the uh the intro song to the to the movie so that song didn’t get in there oh yeah yeah and the Tracy Trac Tracy that I dve a fast car oh that was in there yeah it didn’t get in I got sent the script cuz I got an audition and I read it and I loved it and I laughed out loud like from the very first page and um I was in New York City at the time and they wanted to Skype with me and I was like no I’m going to go to California and I’m going to audition in person and um I brought my ukulele along and I sang a song and I got the part so yeah I auditioned too and then it kind of went away for a while and then I was filming something else uh on location and they told me that they wanted to chemistry read with Anna Kendrick who was attached and once I well I always loved the script but once I was hearing all these names that were surfacing I flew myself to LA on a Saturday uh and read with an I went back to set and found out a couple days later that I got it I remember um reading it and thinking like that a college movie about like singing in college was going to be kind of a hard cell and then um you know K Canon just completely bowed me over and 30 Rock is one of my favorite shows ever made I think it’s so genius and you know I think Kay’s voice is so unique and so smart and surprising that um I was like okay I guess we’re singing in a movie this is happening so you know that was really exciting I guess one of the first things that struck me about this is is how different it is than I expected it’s uh it’s almost like a musical Heathers I like it yeah we get a lot of I expect to be as happy and entertained by this film I mean we set out to to entertain people and and we’re really proud of delivering on that um I’m really glad you enjoyed it yeah it’s I mean it has that just like jokes every every few seconds um we tried to be rigorous about that you know we like to laugh and we got a lot of great funny people in it a lot of improv great stuff from Liz so we tried to you know keep it keep it packed because the music keeps it fast the comedy’s got to keep coming too I I’ve been using the example of like king of Kong and somebody mentioned Spellbound um you know these worlds that most people never see or don’t even know about and but within them there’s this incredible like Cutthroat competition and there’s this hierarchy and there are rock stars within um these aggressively geeky sub genres of life um so uh I I thought that that was really interesting and I thought that um Kay really captured that like hermetically sealed um Bubble of a world it’s interesting seeing this uh you have two of the same cast members you had and what to expect from When You’re Expecting I know because um Elizabeth Banks played my boss in what to expect and then she was my real life boss and we I did these movies back to back so I was like oh I hope it goes well with her and what to expect cuz then I know I’m working for her in the next movie you know I I was in What to Expect When You’re were expecting with Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson right before we started shooting this film we cast Rebel got cast as my assistant in that after we cast her in this movie actually um but working with her was really it was a really it was really great to then understand where her strengths were so that when we got to set I sort of knew like exactly what we were going to how to bring out the best in her so I was really happy that we got to work together beforehand and Anna Kendrick is a great actress I mean I and we you know she was amazing beginning to end and as an Old Pro at singing a great dancer I mean that really surprised me how fast she is picking up amazing moves and just such a a pro just a great Pro the way to cast it it is very good did a good job yeah it made it it’s something for everybody it’s a person for everybody no matter what like I love Fat Amy I think that would be great if I you know that she was a character in there I love I don’t know why I think this that part is so funny when Britney Snow says she had the noes she’s like I can’t sing because it was funny yeah yeah it was like sorry just touch your do it again there she is there you go keep your hands in your tail like touch your tail but you know like it was just so interesting because um uh when she did sing about her notes like it was funny because it you know it sounded like she had cancer which you know in her case it was cuz she can’t see anymore but she’s like I’m a Survivor have nose I love that yeah it was a good one yeah well I think K Canon did such a great job at writing these these people and they were full-fledged human beings I mean she wasn’t just the you know Rebel wasn’t just the crazy one you know I think we all we all have a unique uh Persona and I think when you put all those people together and all these characters how they interact with each other it makes for an amazing Ensemble comedy we had four weeks of rehearsals in Louisiana before we started shooting and cuz the rehearsals were so grueling I just started talking in my natural Australian accent and he’s like oh Rubble I think I think you should totally use use that that Australian accent though how you’re talking now and I said no Jas said I want to like be an actor and play American someone different from myself and he’s like no I think it would really work if you did it and I was like oh okay I tried to argue with him for like a week but then he he wanted my real voice and so because that it was never envisage that she was Australian and stuff I kind of had to make the character my own onset to kind of make it work especially in the few opening scenes that fat Amy appears I was really surprised to find out that the source material for this is a book because you don’t think of musical movies as coming from text um C can you talk about finding the book and and what made you realize it would work so far the book um the book proposal actually was sent to us by a publishing friend sent to my husband and I we have a it’s our production company that started this whole thing moving and we happened to go to a college with a lot of AC cappella groups we knew this world intimately not from being in but sort of as observers and we immediately recognized sort of the funny and I think comedies that explore uh like Christopher guests movies all do explore sort of subculture that people aren’t yeah great fun world that people aren’t really familiar with being able to introduce an audience to characters who care about something as much as these guys care about Acappella singing I just think there’s a lot of potential in that and um and and that’s where that’s where
This video orignally ran on ComingSoon.net in 2012.
Director Jason Moore is interviewed by Silas Lesnick alongside stars Elizabeth Banks, Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Skylar Astin, Brittany Snow, Ester Dean and Hana Mae Lee.
A decidedly fictionalized take on Mickey Rapkin’s nonfiction book, Pitch Perfect follows college freshman Beca (Anna Kendrick) on a journey through the bizarre social cliques of college extracurricular activities, exemplified by rival a cappella groups and colorful, quotable characters like Rebel Wilson’s scene-stealing Fat Amy, Adam Devine’s cocky rival harmonist Bumper and the win-at-all-costs leader of “The Barden Bellas,” Anna Camp’s Aubrey.