It’s emotional, gritty, and very realistic. The action-drama End of Watch chronicles two beat cops (Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena) working in the heart of south central L.A. They deal with gang bangers, drug dealers, and the worst criminals the city has to offer. The film tells a story about men trying to control their world, fighting the good fight.
The emotional core of director David Ayer’s are the relationships. This is a movie as much about family, and what it means to rely on someone, as it is about day to day police work. Anna Kendrick plays Janet, girlfriend and eventual wife to Officer Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal). She becomes a focal point as their relationship develops, and she learns what it means to enter this world.
IGN recently had a chance to sit down with Kendrick to talk about End of Watch and what the movie means to her.
IGN: What can you tell us generally your role in the film?
Anna Kendrick: I play Jake Gyllenhaal’s girlfriend, and fiancee, and eventual wife who is kind of taking the journey from thinking that dating a cop is like dating a teacher or an accountant, and realizing what it is that he risks everyday, and realizing how strong she has to be to accept that risk.
IGN: The film’s form is fascinating, how did the ‘day in the life’ aspect inform how you took on the film?
Anna Kendrick: It certainly created one of the most interesting atmospheres on set that I’ve ever experienced. One in which you were never really sure if you were being filmed or not, so it was weirdly liberating and challenging at the same time, in this wonderful way where you were in character for 12 hours a day. The only time we weren’t holding hands, snuggling or whatever the scene called for was at lunch. If there was ever a point that we realized that every other camera was re-loading then Jake or Michael would grab the handheld and we would just film something. Jake would pull me aside and he would grab the handheld camera and start doing something, and then David would notice that we were in the corner and come over and start filming, and we wouldn’t have noticed for a solid 5 minutes that they’d been filming us, until Dave yells out ‘kiss her!’
IGN: So it sounds like there was a lot of improv on set.
Anna Kendrick: Exactly. Two things happen when you’re allowed to improv that much. You do find these little magic moments that really add to the film, but also it creates such a natural environment that improv can bleed really naturally into scripted dialogue. Dave wrote a great screenplay, and he knew the story that he wanted to tell, so a lot of what’s in the film is paired back down to his original screenplay. There are certainly magical little moments that are peppered in there, and that’s definitely worth all the footage that we sacrificed, it’s certainly worth those tiny little moments that did make it into the film, and I think it aided our performances all around.
IGN: How do you get into the mindset of a police officer's wife?
Anna Kendrick: It was interesting for me because it was one of those weird life imitating art situations where all of my rehearsals were with just Jake. So I’ve met Mike (Peña) and I’ve met Natalie (Martinez), but I didn’t know them well at all, so when I came to set it really felt like my new boyfriend introducing me to his good friends. And the three of them were already really close so I really had that feeling of wanting to prove that I was strong enough to be a part of this family, but then also being overwhelmed by the bond that they had. In a healthy way, I was a little envious of the relationship Jake had with Mike, and the relationship that he has with everybody on the police force. Realizing again and again, and again through every scene just what it means to be a police officer, what it means to be a police officers wife.
In the wedding scene when Mike is giving a toast he gave such a beautiful performance I really felt like I was just listening and taking it in and then I was looking around the room at all these people and being told that they were my family now that all felt really real for me. It was really great to go on this journey with this character. I was a little nervous coming in without doing a ton of prep work because the guys had done so much, but I think actually it would have been detrimental to the entire experience and the performance.
IGN: How did you achieve such believable intimacy with Jake?
Anna Kendrick: I really followed his lead on that. I’m really glad that he was so open and giving on that end, just like somebody who wants to reach inside you and rip you open in this really incredible way. He was so deep in the shit by the time that I got there that he was completely mentally there all day every day. So when I showed up and he was holding my hand the entire time I was like ‘this is weird right?’; but I think that’s exactly why that relationship is believable in such a short amount of screen time.
IGN: What draws you to this kind of a character?
Anna Kendrick: I don’t have a thing for really likable characters. Even in this, Janet is likable and she has her heart in the right place but I think weirdly the scene that really puts the audience on her side is the scene when she goes through Brian’s wallet. Because it’s not a respectable thing to do, and I think the audience wants to be on a character’s side and they want to forgive them, but when you just say ‘here’s this character isn’t she great, this is why we love her’ I think people really resist that.
This is a really silly example but I think that on Community you know how at first people didn’t like Britta, because she was supposed to be the cool one, the moral one; and once they started breaking her down and making her like the worst, and making fun of her, people started to really come around on her. Little things like that is what makes you connect with characters and gets you on their side. Even the police officers, people talk about finally showing the story of two good cops, but they make some morally questionable decisions. I think those are the places where you’re rooting for them., because they’re human, and you think ‘if I met them they wouldn’t look down on me.’
IGN: What’s your take on some of the graphic violence in the film?
Anna Kendrick: That’s really David’s wheelhouse. I think this is a world that David understands and there are things in the film that I wish I could look at them and say ‘but I’m sure that kind of thing doesn’t really happen…’ but of course a lot of these are true stories or inspired by true stories so there’s a part of me that wants to block some of that out. I know that it’s a world that David understands so I’m glad he can put it across so beautifully, and in such a compelling way.
End of Watch is now playing.
Source : ign[dot]com
No comments:
Post a Comment