Scrappy Little Nobody (9 page)

The small mercy was that this phase was short-lived. I got a friend in my hometown to shoplift with me (you know, pay it forward and all that) and for a while no Claire’s or T.J. Maxx was safe. But, like a dying star, the desire burned brightly and disappeared quickly. A few years later I told my mother that I’d gone through a short thievery phase, and she was more surprised than angry. I suppose the statute of limitations for parental disapproval had passed.

That weekend, as we wheeled our groceries out of the Hannaford, she realized we’d forgotten cereal. We went back in and I grabbed it while she started looking for the shortest checkout line.

“Hey, Ma,” I whispered, “you want me to just take it?”

I cocked my head down and opened my winter coat. She looked scandalized but kind of impressed, like I had a superpower, or we were on a date and I was the town bad boy. I put the cereal in the cart, but I swear, if I’d been serious she would have let me do it. Weak-willed country folk.

I remained a square, though. I had gone through the motions of a bare-minimum teenage rebellion, but it was all very Olivia Newton-John learning to blow smoke rings. It was just a prelude to breaking the biggest rule of all.

I started applying to colleges at the beginning of senior year. But I had this itch. I’d just come back from making
Camp
, and I already had more high school credits than I needed, which made going to class feel like I was in a holding pattern. I happen to love learning, but clawing through layers of disruptive students, overstretched teachers, and pointless extracurriculars to do it was discouraging. Deep down I knew I didn’t want to go to college.

The idea of another four years of being chaperoned and dealing with immature classmates and putting off my real life made my chest tighten. But how could I not go?! Everyone in my family went to college; even my finally-got-his-act-together brother was in college. The value of education was ingrained in me from birth. In fact, I had thought college was mandatory until I was, like, thirteen and saw a commercial for the army. “I tried college; it wasn’t for me,” said the soldier.
“Wasn’t for you”? What are you talking about? That’s like saying that paying your taxes “wasn’t for you”!
It turns out that was not correct, yet once I’d learned college was optional, I knew the suburban gossip would be that the Kendrick girl wasn’t going because she was knocked up or criminally insane.

The itch was not going away, and even though I sent out my applications, I jumped at the first opportunity to put college on hold and start paying my dues. Fuck convention. Sandra Dee was going to the Big Apple.

I
graduated high school early so that I could move to Manhattan and do
A Little Night Music
at New York City Opera, which is the braggiest sentence I will ever get to say. During this time, puberty finally hit me full force, which led to a number of horrifying incidents, including nearly passing out onstage because of the chest binder I had to wear to hide my new boobs.

Renting an apartment on my own and going to work at Lincoln Center made me feel
very
grown-up. I was constantly congratulating myself for the smallest things.
Yeah, I’m just riding the subway to work in New York City like it’s no big deal
. Which of course meant that to me, at every moment, it was a HUGE deal. I wish I could say this masquerading-as-an-adult-and-getting-away-with-it feeling was exclusive to being seventeen, but so many things in my life are still like that.
Yeah, I’m checking my email on a laptop I own like it’s no big deal.

Night Music
was the first real job I’d had since I was a kid, and I was desperate to do well. Also, Paul Gemignani, the musical director on
High Society
(who used to speed up that indulgent actress’s songs), had recommended me for the role, and I didn’t want to let him down. The cast was packed with impressive talents.
My onstage grandmother and most frequent scene partner was played by none other than Claire Bloom, arguably the greatest living theater actress. Before I did the show, my dad found a VHS called
Shakespeare’s Women & Claire Bloom
, which was half documentary, half master class. Watching it raised her to a godlike level in my eyes.

Working with someone with that kind of technique was beyond intimidating. I wish I could say that I shouldn’t have been nervous, but the woman did not mince words. During our first attempt to rehearse our most intimate scene in the show, Claire stopped me mid-sentence and said, “You’re not going to do it like that, are you?”

Well, Claire,
I thought
, this was my audition scene, and that was how I did it in the audition . . . which got me this job. . . . So yeah, I thought I might
. I never forgave the director for not defending me. Together they decided what changes I should make. The net result was that I had to do almost the entire scene in profile, facing her.

If she saw me outside the rehearsal room, she would ask to run our scenes over and over. She once snapped her fingers while I was mid-line and said, “No,
really
do it; let’s start again.”

As we got closer to the performance date, we started watching full run-throughs so we could see the pieces of the show come together. After watching me do a scene with another actor, Claire approached me and took hold of my arm.

“That was really lovely work today, Anna,” she said. Her eyes were sparkling. “No, I mean really wonderful.”

I was thrilled, but something about the surprise in her voice
made me feel like a monkey who had composed a sonata. Still, it was enough to make me reframe her in my mind as a strict but fair mentor of sorts.

We became almost friendly. We once walked to a Starbucks near Lincoln Center in the drizzling rain and didn’t talk about work at all. I told her about my friends, who were all still in high school back home, and how I missed them but never knew what to say when we talked. She talked a little bit about her ex-husband (who was Philip fucking Roth, by the way) and her daughter, and like a typical seventeen-year-old I retained none of it. We were getting along well in spite of my fear and she seemed to have a growing respect for my
slightly
superior musicianship. I could read music and follow the time signature changes, which was especially important now that we were expected to listen for our cues instead of watching the conductor. The irony was that we were in the company of five full-time members of the New York City Opera, but their skill level so exceeded ours that we could almost no longer understand it to be impressive. It was like being the smartest janitor at NASA.

Claire had a rich voice and she acted the hell out of her songs, but she wasn’t a confident musician—and not for nothing, Sondheim music is a damn battlefield. Our version of the show began with the curtain rising on a frozen tableau of the full cast. Claire’s character sat before a wooden tray that was covered in playing cards and a brass handbell. I was seated on the floor by her feet, looking up at her. During the overture, Claire was meant to ring her bell to set all the characters in motion and begin the show. The cue had been a crapshoot during rehearsals, but in our final
preview performance she missed it by enough that our conductor stopped the music entirely and went back to the start.

At the note session before opening night, our choreographer tentatively inquired if I could reach Claire’s bell from where I was sitting in the opening tableau. I even more tentatively said yes. That settled that. We left the note session feeling a little awkward but relieved. I went up to the dressing room I shared with one of the NYCO members and started to get ready. Over the loudspeaker I heard the announcement, “Anna Kendrick to Claire Bloom’s dressing room, Anna Kendrick to Claire Bloom’s dressing room.” That phrase still haunts my dreams.

I went down the four flights of stairs to her dressing room. She was set up in a solo room just off the stage and I inched to her door. She had her back turned when I slithered in, but she looked up and saw me in her mirror. She did not turn around.

“I told them I’m ringing the bell. I’m ringing the bell or I’m leaving the show.”

If I hadn’t been terrified, I would have found this kind of fabulous.

“When it’s time, you are going to cue me. Just give me a nod, and then I will ring the bell.”

“Okay,” I squeaked.

I don’t remember how I extricated myself or if she had me stay awhile and practice cueing her. But the image of her in that dressing-room mirror and her mannered phrasing are permanently burned into my brain. When I told my parents the story, my dad was shocked. “They just sent you to her dressing room? You’re a
minor
; why the hell would they have you settle a
dispute with an adult actress on your own?” It was a fair point, in retrospect.

I was happy to take all the criticism for even an ounce of praise, and if she ever reads this I hope my reverence for her is clear. But just in case it’s not: Claire, I worship you. If I saw you tomorrow and you hit me in the face, it would be the highlight of my year.

She was the greatest living Shakespearean actress and I was a seventeen-year-old in a bad wig. I’m not just mitigating this because she happens to still scare the crap out of me, but because people being tough with you doesn’t mean they’re villains. Paul Gemignani kicked my ass on
High Society
,
A Little Night Music
, and
Into the Woods
, and that dude
loves
me. Right, Paul?

Does this wig make me look out of my depth? Or is that just my face?

I
was told as a child that if I wanted to be in entertainment, I shouldn’t have a backup plan. That is terrible advice. If things hadn’t worked out for me, I’d be an Uber driver or the world’s most prudish porn star. (Which doesn’t mean I would be an
unsuccessful
porn star; there’s a fetish for everything, ladies!) However, I’m glad I followed that terrible advice.

Don’t get me wrong, I wish I had more skills, but if I’d had a safety net, I would have used it. Sometimes the terror was so overwhelming that if I’d been offered an apprenticeship scrubbing the floor of a button factory (what do normal jobs look like?), I would have thought,
Fine, I can’t take this anymore
—
sign me up, give me the health benefits, give me a time card and a mean boss and some goddamn security.
I needed the fear. I needed to be forced to rely on myself, and the dream, and sometimes unemployment checks. (Thank you, US government! Please don’t repossess my house when I go all
Grey Gardens
!)

It’s obviously very lucky for me that, at the moment, acting is working out. This was not always the case. For a while there, if a casting director looked up from her clipboard, it was a good day. There are buildings in Los Angeles that still make me shudder
when I drive past, the aura of rejection radiating off of them like a landfill on a hot day. I sometimes think that I should have a sense of pride knowing that I’ve achieved more than my sixteen-year-old brain would have ever let me imagine, but mostly it’s just the opposite.

I think self-doubt is healthy. And having to fight for the thing you want doesn’t mean you deserve it any less. Maybe I’m not supposed to mention that it was a fight, but I find that to be such an old-money attitude. I think I’m supposed to act as though I always knew I’d find success (not out loud, obviously—just using some heavy-handed subtext), but moving to Los Angeles felt like that dream where you’re naked in a grocery store, hoping that no one will notice. I figured I’d be discovered and thrown out at some point. I’m still waiting.

I came to LA without a car. I was unprepared for the move in a lot of ways, and thinking I could walk to a grocery store and back before a carton of milk spoiled was a pretty glaring one. Why didn’t anyone tell me you needed a car in LA? Because I didn’t know a soul who lived there. That was a much greater problem, of course, but one thing at a time!