Anna Kendrick wants to be done with musicals

CEBU, Philippines - Anna Kendrick was all smiles as a small, urgent flurry of flashbulbs popped before her, and she was quite genuinely happy to be reunited with the creative team from her upcoming film, an adaptation of the Off-Broadway musical “The Last Five Years.” But, the straight shooter that she is, Kendrick was also blunt about her recent run of musical films — and her desire to give her vocal chords a break.

“I never want to sing again, honestly. It’s hard,” the actress, who starred on Broadway as a 12-year-old, admitted to The Wrap at a distributor screening of her film at Lincoln Center.

“The ‘Pitch Perfect’ [sequel] is going to be fine, ten girls have to be able to sing the songs so it’s going to be fine, but doing ‘The Last Five Years’ and then ‘Into the Woods’ straight away, I was like, I don’t want to have to think about my voice so much. I want to be able to drink beer whenever I want,” she added.

If she sticks to that plan, Kendrick should go out with good marks for her last two musical performances. In “The Last Five Years,” Kendrick plays opposite Jeremy Jordan (“Newsies”) in writer-director Richard LaGravenese’s adaptation of Jason Robert Brown’s critically acclaimed, if little-seen musical, which played Off-Broadway in 2002 and won a Drama Desk award.

“Years” is a non-linear story that follows the phases of a young couple’s doomed relationship like a double-ended stick of dynamite burning inward, with the blissful early days of their love colliding with a flame that begins at their separation. Jealousy, arrogance and infidelity tear Cathy (a struggling actress) and Jamie (a rising novelist) apart, marking it as an important beginning in millennial pop culture’s exploration of divorce. The film holds on to the stage musical’s trading of colliding timelines, but unlike the original production, which alternated solos, this version features both actors in nearly every scene.

One can understand Kendrick’s reticence to dive back into musicals, because not only was she featured in a great bulk of the scenes, the entire thing was musicalized, so any and all dialogue was at least given a sing-song tune, if not flat out belted.

It was shot in 21 days throughout New York on a shoestring budget, and all the singing was done live, which added both creative freedom and vocal stress.

“Honestly, after ‘Pitch Perfect,’ I wouldn’t have ever wanted to do a musical,” Kendrick said. “I would have intentionally tried not to do a musical, but when it’s ‘The Last Five Years’ and ‘Into the Woods’ [in which she plays Cinderella, crown and all], you can’t really say no.” (FREEMAN)