One glance at a movie theater marquee this summer and a person will see many things. Liam Hemsworth fighting off an alien invasion. Tarzan flying across the jungle. Zac Efron looking for a wedding date.
And among all that, there's Anna Kendrick. She hit theaters this weekend in all her bad girl glory, drinking and smoking and swearing up a storm. She plays the totally wacky Alice, who joins onscreen BFF Aubrey Plaza for the must vulgar Hawaii weekend in cinematic history in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. And somehow, with all the F-bombs and permanent sloshed-ness, Kendrick seems completely natural in this R-rated world. Yes, the same actress who brought the world "Cups."
And that's because Anna Kendrick is a God d--n chameleon.
She got her start at the tender age of...well, let's just say very young...in musical theater. She performed the show Cabaret onstage at Carnegie Hall at the tender age of 13, and her first real onscreen gig was starring in the bizarre cult classic (and musical) Camp in 2003. As the saying goes: Once a musical theater nerd, always a musical theater nerd, right? We still find her belting out songs whenever possible—like the time last month that she sang her way through an entire love story on The Late Late Show With James Corden—and it probably won't be long before she finds her way to a Broadway stage. (Is Hamilton still looking for new cast members? Consider this the unofficial start to our petition.)
But regardless of how full her current theater resumé is, it's mostly because of this theater nerdity (Is that a word? We just made it one. You're welcome, Anna.) and not in spite of it, that she has the star power that she does today. And that's all thanks to a little something we call range.
But before we start waxing poetic on all of the actress' many variable talents, it's time to go back to the beginning of the career we know today. Most may not remember, but Kendrick first soared into stardom when she was cast alongside a little-known actor named George Clooney. The year was 2009 and the film was Up in the Air. It scored her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and international recognition. It's actually impossible to decide which is better.
A Supporting Actress nom meant that Anna got to try her hand with the awards show circuit (and, more importantly, the awards show party circuit) and everything that comes with it. She fielded interview requests, she covered magazines, she generally yukked it up. That success was followed up by a series of small-to-medium parts in some very not small-to-medium movies: The Twilight saga for one, but also Seth Rogen's 50/50, Jake Gyllenhaal's End of Watch, and even that What to Expect When You're Expecting flick.
And then, of course, came a little thing we like to call Pitch Perfect; the all-female musical that could. Pitch Perfect not only introduced many, many more people to the wide talents of Anna Kendrick, but it introduced studio heads to her box office power. As we now know, the flick earned itself a major cult following—enough for a very successful soon-to-be-completed trilogy. It also introduced our favorite Bella to the power of a viral moment.
Yep, we're talking about "Cups." Or, as the Pitch Perfect powers that be would prefer we call it, "When I'm Gone." It was probably the first time that a song born out of playing with Solo cups made it onto Spotify, and at the time of this writing the YouTube music video version has almost 300 million views. And thus began the reign of Viral Anna Kendrick.
You probably know where this is going: Straight to Twitter. Kendrick's screen presence, classical training and ability to play just about every role possible may have gotten her some of her most impressive gigs, but it's her quick with and thumbs-to-the-keyboard persistence that made her a major movie star. While some celebs eschew social media, she embraces it—and uses it to her every advantage. For years now she's been taking to Twitter to do everything from airing a random grievance, live-tweeting Grease! Live (or her own personal closet clean out) and even to just share her thoughts on California rolls with her now-5.2 million followers.
Her tweets have earned her countless admirers, dozens of dedicated essays and thought-pieces, and now she's going for the big-time: A book deal. The tome, which is titled Scrappy Little Nobody and is due out this November, will cover, according to the publisher, anecdotes from her life, tales of her New England upbringing and inside stories from her experiences in Hollywood. In other words, it's going to be one giant, well-edited Twitter feed.
Which brings us to the Anna Kendrick we know and love today; the A-lister who opens blockbusters and appears on every late show known to man. With her part opposite Zac Efron and big fat book advance she could sit back and rest on her laurels, but instead she's got herself quite a solid 2016 and 2017 lined up. We'll see her opposite Ben Affleck and J.K. Simmons in this fall's thriller The Accountant, voicing a part in the huge animation flick Trolls, and finally dropping that much-anticipated Pitch Perfect 3. In other words, it's good to be Anna Kendrick.