Anna Kendrick isn’t one to mix work and booze, but sometimes you don’t get a choice in the matter.
In an interview with Vulture about her Joe Swanberg comedy “Drinking Buddies,” the actress reveals that she got drunk — for real — while filming a scene with on-screen boyfriend Jake Johnson.
“During a scene at the bar, they gave me fake beer, but then during a scene where I’m playing cards with Jake, they gave me real beer, and I didn’t realize it!” she says. “And so every time I lost, I was pounding beer, and I didn’t realize it was real until halfway through the take. I was like, I’m super drunk right now! And so as soon as the take was over, I had to announce to everybody that I was drunk at work.”
Instead of keeping the party going, Kendrick “just tried to sit quietly until I sobered up.” She looks back on the experience as “uncomfortable” — emphasis included.
“[I]t worked in the scene, and so it was helpful for them, but I mostly found it really unnerving,” she recalls.
The bulk of the movie is improvised, which we would have found unnerving, but Kendrick embraced as exciting. “It was my first time doing anything quite like it,” she says. “We did a lot of improv on ‘End of Watch,’ so I kind of think of ‘End of Watch’ as training wheels for ‘Drinking Buddies,’ but this was the first time I had done it to this extent. And it was crazy doing it with Ron [Livingston], Jake, and Olivia [Wilde] because all four of us were new to this specific world of improv, but also really game for it and really excited about it.”
“Drinking Buddies” is now in theaters.
[via Vulture]
Gallery | The Great Movie Bar Crawl
Woody’s L Street Tavern (Boston, MA) – ‘Good Will Hunting’
Most of “Good Will Hunting” was filmed in Toronto, but Matt Damon and Ben Affleck traveled back to their old stomping grounds of Boston to film in the L Street Tavern, a popular Harvard hotspot. The bar turns into an intellectual gladiator arena when Will (Matt Damon) schools a local college kid in what education is really about. Street smahts whip book smahts.
Coyote Ugly (New York, NY) – ‘Coyote Ugly’
The Piper Perabo-starring dance drama turned the East Village bar into a glitzy, metropolitan road house. The real place is a bit dimmer and danker than in the movie, but it’s just as rootin’ tootin’. Yes, the gals really do dance on the bar top.
The Tombs (Washington D.C.) – ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’
Here’s a bit of a cheat — “St. Elmo’s Fire” isn’t a real bar. But the primary set of the classic ’80s coming-of-age drama was an accurate recreation of The Tombs, located an arm’s reach from Georgetown University’s campus. A great location to contemplate the foggy post-college future.
Mitch’s Bar (Raleigh, NC) – ‘Bull Durham’
Leave it to a Kevin Costner baseball gem to steer the crawl down south. Fans lucky enough to have arm candy on the level of Susan Sarandon circa 1988 can start a bar fight in the very location Costner dueled Tim Robbins in “Bull Durham.” Head to Mitch’s Tavern, grab a pint, then head to the back alley for a test of strength.
Corona Club (Ciudad Acuña, Mexico) – ‘Desperado’
Did you bring your passport? Head just a smidge across the Texas border to visit the town of Ciudad Acuña and its local cantina, Corona Club. After shooting his no-budget feature El Mariachi in the bar, Robert Rodriguez returned with Antonio Banderas for the slick remake.
Pompilio’s Bar and Restaurant (Newport, KY) – ‘Rain Man’
On the surface, Barry Levinson’s award-winning drama is about the clash between two brothers. Broader, it’s about the friction between America’s coasts. Tom Cruise’s Charlie is transplanted to middle America to find his autistic brother Raymond, and he’s immediately out of place. Levinson took his crew out to real locations and it shows, like Pompillio’s, the bar where Charlie learns of Raymond’s astounding abilities.
Twin Anchors (Chicago, IL) – ‘The Dark Knight’
Christopher Nolan loves to shoot in real locations and for his follow-up to “Batman Begins,” he decided to make Gotham City uniquely Chicagoan. Towards the end of the film, we see Harvey Dent sipping a drink with his newly deformed face. That’s Twin Anchors, which swaps super villain cameos for a mean plate ribs on most nights.
The Stanley Hotel (Estes Park, CO) – ‘The Shining’
Stanley Kubrick built out a second bar for “The Gold Room” scenes of his chilling Stephen King adaptation, though it’s all based on the real interiors of the main shooting location: The Stanley Hotel. Built in 1909, the still-standing vacation destination was tailored for Kubrick’s version of the Outlook Hotel. Their current bar may not be the exact setting of Jack Nicholson’s supernatural encounter, but the ghosts of the production linger.
Kansas City BBQ (San Diego, CA) – ‘Top Gun’
The world gasped in 2008 when there was a chance that “Top Gun” history was going to be erased. Kansas City BBQ, home to Tom Cruise’s rousing rendition of “Great Balls of Fire” and the touching grace note set to “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,” caught fire in 2008 and burnt to the ground. Luckily, the memorabilia survived and the bar was back on its feet by that Fall. Maverick would have approved of that gusto.
Wheel Inn Restaurant (Cabazon, CA) – ‘Pee Wee’s Big Adventure’
Pee Wee’s famed performance of The Champs’ “Tequila” took place at the Wheel Inn — also the home of those giant dinosaurs seen in the film. If this isn’t Tim Burton’s ideal place to order a drink, there’s little hope for him.
The 3 Clubs (Los Angeles, CA) – ‘Swingers’
Let’s be honest: all great nights out (or at least, all attempts at a great night out) start casually at a bar. That’s the thinking that takes Jon Favreau, Vince Vaugn, and the rest of their “Swingers” gang to L.A.’s 3 Clubs, a swanky cocktail bar that’s just as old fashioned as it was in 1996. You will feel “money” drinking at 3 Clubs, whether you have it or don’t. And that’s what counts.
Magnolia Pictures
