Anna Kendrick felt “gross” making money off her latest film, the Netflix true-crime drama about the so-called “Dating Game” killer, and has donated her pay to nonprofits that support survivors of sexual abuse and violence.
The “Woman of the Hour” star and director said recently that she was “steeped in some really valid ethical questions around true crime” and planned to give her cut to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network and the National Center for Victims of Crime.
Spokespeople for RAINN and NCVC confirmed Friday to The Times that Kendrick had indeed made donations to the organizations from her work on the film. The amounts were not disclosed.
RAINN’s founder and president, Scott Berkowitz, expressed gratitude to Kendrick on behalf of the organization and survivors. Berkowitz also praised Kendrick for being “a compassionate storyteller when it comes to raising awareness of sexual violence,” noting in his statement that her donation will help RAINN continue to provide free, around-the-clock support through its National Sexual Assault Hotline.
Renée Williams, the chief executive of NCVC, told The Times that she was excited to learn about Kendrick’s gift to the organization and to RAINN, saying that they are “humbled by her support.”
“In a world where the true-crime genre often sensationalizes tragedy, Anna’s work in ‘Woman of the Hour’ stands out as a beacon of compassion and leadership,” Williams said. “By advocating for a victim-centered approach, she is helping to reshape narratives that prioritize the dignity of those affected by crime.”
Williams added that Kendrick’s commitment to telling uplifting survivor stories “reminds us that behind every statistic, and true-crime ‘story,’ is a human being with a powerful story to tell.”
“Anna’s support sends a strong message that we can engage with hard truths while honoring the experiences of victims and survivors. It’s about creating a culture that listens, validates and empowers those who have been through unimaginable pain,” she said.
The “Pitch Perfect” and “Up in the Air” star has said the new film “was never a money-making venture” for her,” telling SiriusXM’s “Crime Junkie AF” podcast host Ashley Flowers that she didn’t feel right about taking a paycheck from the project.
“All the resources went to making the movie. But it wasn’t until the Toronto [International] Film Festival, where the movie premiered — that’s where Netflix bought the movie — it wasn’t until the week before TIFF that I thought, ‘Oh, there’s gonna be money,’” the 39-year-old said.
“I went from being like, ‘Let me know when the movie happens!’ to ‘Oh, God, I’m responsible for this,’ and then I was just making the movie. And we barely made the deadline to get into TIFF, and then it was like, ‘Oh, there’s money exchanging hands,’ and I asked myself the question, ‘Do you feel gross about this?’” she continued.
“And I did. So I’m not making money off the movie,” she said.
Kendrick thought that donating to the charities was the least she could do.
“I think that these [true-crime] stories have to be told, and I think that there’s probably a better way than it’s been done in the past, right? And it’s like, how do we do right by the people who are in them? There’s a lot of heavy questions. It’s not black-and-white. Ethics is never black-and-white,” she said.
In “Woman of the Hour,” which began streaming Oct. 18, Kendrick plays the bachelorette who picked serial killer Rodney Alcala (played by Daniel Zovatto) on a 1978 episode of “The Dating Game,” then immediately realized something was off about him. Her character is based on real-life game-show contestant Cheryl Bradshaw and attributes her survival to “blind luck.”
Alcala died in prison in 2021 after an Orange County jury convicted him in 2010 of killing four women and a 12-year-old girl in California between 1977 and 1979. Investigators also have suspected Alcala — who was sentenced to death in 2010 — in other murders in California, Washington state, New York, New Hampshire and Arizona.
Elsewhere on the podcast, the “Trolls” star said that she moved away from comedy and into true-crime stories due to her “shocking and traumatic” experience with an abusive ex.
“Some things went down in a long-term relationship that I was in, I really got kind of obsessed [with true crime],” Kendrick said. “And I think that there’s a way in which we can kind of sublimate our own stuff by feeling like, ‘If I can just get to the bottom of why that guy or that person did that thing, maybe I could uncover some universal human truth and I could make sure that I never found myself in a situation like that again.’”
Kendrick also opened up about how she got out of that relationship, during which she described herself as “walking on eggshells” with her ex-partner and going into “information-gathering mode” before they split.
“Just listening to him sort of describe where his worldview was coming from or his mind-set was like, ‘Oh no,’” she said. “It was just kind of so much more illuminating than any, you know, argument that we’d had because it really was like, ‘OK, I’m creating a really, really safe space for you and you’re talking crazy, friend,’ so yeah.
“That’s when we went into couples therapy the next session and I was like, ‘I think we need to cut contact for a while,’ and a while was many months, but, you know, then it was messy, it’s complicated, whatever, and then, yeah. It was done and I put his stuff in storage and that was that.”
The actor-director also spoke about that seven-year relationship during an appearance last week on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast. She did not name the ex.
