Anna Kendrick is CJAF!
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Hi, crime junkies. Surprise, surprise, a little extra ashly flowers in your feed today. But i'm coming to you for a very special reason.

I recently got the opportunity to interview ana kendrick about her new movie on netflix. Woman of the hour. I'll tell you right up front, you guys ten at a ten, highly recommend. Now our interview was originally for my serious X M show, crime junky A F, which if you didn't know, you can find in the serious X M A B or in the crime junky fan club. But this interview was just too good.

I was like, so right up your ally that I begged serious exam to let me share IT with all of you because IT turns out, and a kenda ick is just like us because along with talking about women of the hour reach, by the way, is her director oral day. We also talked about her personal experiences, what LED her to this story and her interest in true crime as a whole. So whether you're an og crime junky or you just found us because you're a fan of anna, this conversation is one that you don't wanna miss and if you're here because you're an ana c fan, hi me too and welcome to your ultimate true crime destination, where you can hear the true story behind women of the hour and the stories behind hundreds of other true crime cases.

So take a listen right here, right now, or if you want you catch a video version of this conversation on the crime jenky youtube channel. And after you listen to this interview, don't forget to listen to the episode of crime junky titled serial killer rodney alcala to hear the details of the case behind and a kendrick's woman of the hour. I'm on a link to IT right in the shown OS for you.

I promise you will love you, but you're gonna love this to enjoy. Hi crime junkies, i'm actually flowers. And if you're watching this, you'll notice i'm not my Normal place.

I'm in a very special place with a very special guess. Most of you would recognize her from her work. She's multitalented many ways from being an Oscar and tony nomad actresses to an author, singer, song writer.

And you are now staring in netflix's women of the hour. And IT is your directorial debut. I can do you guys for my daughter, who was giving me a guilt trip before I laugh, SHE would .

think I was so cool that I was meeting. Po, oh my. O, okay. So this is a tRicky age because parents are like, all my god, you look at poppy and they introduce a trail bar mates like floods of tears immediately, because I don't have pink skin and pink hair. And it's something off like that.

I'm just going a little. Listen, she's going to be throw. Great, great, great.

So i'm so excited. First of all, one of the hour was incredible. I got a little big pig. I truly loved IT .

start to finish well. I feel like a loser fan girl t but it's such a cute merge. Like, I get a lot of merge and is usually like, oh, you were in a perfectly good shirt.

This is so good. This is so good. Anyway, sorry, head too.

Well, so yes, speaking of being a crime junkie, like how did you get to this place? Because this is a little bit of a departure. You've done some like serious stuff, but I mean, like this is like serious and like a serious.

Wow, I was like, I don't even think I ve ever been in a movie that was this genre or this kind of the times .

of real stuff that you've done has still .

been kind of light harder. Yeah yeah I and I am very aware that um most people know me from one of a couple of like light hearted musical franchise so yeah poppy, whatever and so yeah I I I even got some not pushed back but my my friends were questioning the decision like I I sent a film ker from script. I was like two think this is crazy for me to do um I was mostly thinking about, hey, here's the story.

Here's the very limited budget and time for when we have and I would be jumping on to this movie. I be pitching myself to direct this movie and IT starts in six weeks. So um do you think that's just a terrible idea and i'm just setting myself up for failure? And um you know he was like, well, I it's a lot but mostly he was like, I can fast.

I've been hoping you would direct something for a long time and i'm surprised that it's this and he was like, I think you know, once I got IT further into the script, I could see a lot of themes around moving through the world as a woman and trying to stay safe. That makes sense to me. But you know, he was really kind of referencing the opening scene of the movie, which is, we are interesting because I I love that scene, and I fought for that scene.

which I heard, which I so glad that you did. Because, like I, I can see why many people would want to remove IT. But I think IT takes away from what .

the story is yeah yeah and and don't get me wrong, I understood why he was going this because again, it's it's not really what I known for and it's not the kinds of film sets that i've been on a lot. But you know, I think that even my relationship to true crime here really changed um a few years ago um because I went through something really um shocking and traumatic for me um and I really couldn't figure out what had happened.

And I don't know if you late to this, but i'm sure many listeners will that you would really beat yourself up and go like, how did I not see? Like, how did I not know that that was coming? How did I not get myself had that situation sooner? All the ways that we really put all that shame on ourselves.

And I told him I was like, I know that this isn't necessarily in my professional White house, but this unfortunately feels like familiar territory to me. And that question of whose name is this, how much of your shame do I have to absorb here before i'm in harm's way? I think that question hangs over a lot of our lives more often than we realize, and that felt central to the kind of emotional center of the story.

Um and i've always been kind of I don't know, I guess maybe I would consider myself to have been a more casual consumer of true crime. And then when you know some things went down in in a long term relationship that I was in, um I really I really got kind of obsessed and and I think that there's a way in which we can kind of sublimate our own stuff um by feeling like if I can just get to the bottom of why that guy or that person did that thing. Maybe I could uncover some universal human truth and I could make sure that I never found myself in a situation like that again and I don't know how true that is, but I really changed how I consumed true crime. Um but uh at any rate you know the subject matter of the movie is like really gripping but I I also hoped to be bringing in some of the emotional DNA to the entire movie which did .

a great job. You said, like your warehouse girl is not your warehouse. You did incredible and I feel like I just my crime janki brain just like jump to right? But do you actually for .

those who don't know what.

what do you want to tell them .

like what the based on? yes. So it's funny on other outlets. I sort of more vae.

but I guess no, I.

Don't um so he is based on the story of radial cola um who was a serial killer in the ninety seventies and in the middle of you really being able to Operate without consequence for over a decade. He went on the show, the dating game, and won the dating game. And so that piece of, you know the story, that dating game piece is really used as a kind of framing device for the movie because it's really evacuation of that question of like, who can you trust and who's really behind the curtain? How much can you really know about a person before you know that you're safe?

We have a crime junk I life rule that you .

never know anyone ever grow tell me about IT and yeah, I mean, I sort of describe IT as the story of running cola. But IT is really meant to be the story of the impact that he had on the people that were unfortunate enough to come across him. Um so the aim was always to really center stories yeah I think .

a really amazing job of that. And you had this um the scene like I was like crawling out of my skin when you with the scene, we are like actually on the day with him and you're walking to the car and it's the whole number seeing where he's like to of your number again. Like why can't you remember? And I was I was just my husband didn't like that. I was free .

all the time you your time .

and early on a you here you he's just like six foot sick do and I like you move in the world a way that like, I cannot yeah and you cannot I appreciate that you empathy with being a woman, but you you have no idea what IT feels like that when i'm going on a walk. I'm not enjoying the walk because i'm constantly like looking here and looking there and that car past me twice. And here's the icenway like number and yes, different. But the way that I thought you did so well in capturing just the uncomfortable position I think nearly every woman has probably been in at some point yeah where it's like I don't feel safe, I don't feel good like why but you don't also don't .

feel comfortable saying yes and you're not totally sure if you're making IT up. I'm just being paranoid ID and the way that we kind of second guess ourselves. And i'd try to just sort of like be pleasing and i'll just get myself out of this situation. God, that's so interesting because there are several moments in the movie that while we were shooting, one of the men on set would sort of say like, hey, should we do another take of that? Like I I don't know that it's super clear like what's happening in the scene and I would sort of be like, well, women are gonna .

know what's um and I think .

most and I think most men will not follow what's happening in the movie. But yeah, there is a twenty percent of men who don't follow what ending .

that's fine with me and IT feels like .

there's this kind of secret language of, yes, women and part of that is it's a pocket in secret yeah so weight in .

my otis oh, it's serious, right?

So you know sometimes that means that um maybe IT won't be a thousand percent clear to some men like what what the dynamics are at play. But I I think it's very, very clean. But I think .

that's the beautiful part. You having stepped in the role as director, is having a woman be the land like the lens through the story and telling every more perspective and being able to like honing on those like nuances that I don't know that someone else would have capture. And I just thought you did IT. And like such a truly incredible way.

that's the nice to .

say how did so how did you decide that you wanted to direct something because this is your first yeah I mean, you came out with .

a banger but um I mean, I always feel a little embarrass saying this but I think I had told myself I mean, certainly I told everyone around me and I had told myself I just wasn't interested in interacting um because I think that is vulnerable to want something. And you know you might not get IT or you might get IT and you might fail. And so I just was constantly telling myself like, I don't know god directors are crazy on that and I really have on myself um getting kind of obsessed with this script um and maybe getting a little controlling know because I was touched as an actor for about two years and I was just sort of like, okay, let me know when .

the movie go here yeah yes oh god.

that's so common yeah like you just sort like things and you're like, well, let me know if IT comes together and and then the other thing that happens is occasionally something that's been moving really, really slow for a long time will out of nowhere very quickly be coming together at lightning speed and um basically going, okay. Well, we got the money together and we have a window that we could shoot IT in.

And if we don't, if we missed that window, we might IT might fall apart again. And at that point, we didn't have a director. And so we kind of scrambled and we were trying to find someone, and we certainly weren't looking at first time directors. IT was like, well, we have three dollars and a roll of duct tape, and IT needs to happen right now. So we were really mostly trying to find, like, pretty experienced people.

And I guess I oh god, I feel words saying this, but I think that I also started to feel like we i'm sorry, i've been thinking about this movie for two years and someone who's going to come back and like, tell me what the movie and i'm going to be like you just guy here and you know, there were also certain details from the true story that felt really important to me. And I had always thought like, well, if I were my movie, this is how I would do IT. But this is not my movie. That's okay. And you know, very quickly I got to do like a new draft with the the screenwriter and make some changes and um I just conversation .

being like I want IT .

oh I was terrifying. Oh my god. I mean, I think like even in in the pitch that I did, I saying like if you guys don't think i'm the right person, it's so fine.

It's totally fine. Um I just wanted do what's best for the movie. Um it's it's okay if you don't think .

i'm ready that tell me a gw basit is really that is listen.

I am. Here's the deal. Here's like what I bring to the table here is like A I going like, here's what I think I bring to the table here are the areas of deficit. I I want to be honest, why project false confidence? Because then I was like, well, also if you hire me IT means like you have to support me because I was.

I love IT. yeah. So how did, how did the story find you originally? Well, okay.

so h IT originally found me because I was IT descript, just got to me and and I had that moment that maybe other listeners have where you go. Oh, right. This guy, he was, yeah, he was a zero killer one on the dating game.

And that's like mostly what you remember, what you know about IT. And you know, obviously that is a fascinating true crime story. So I was interested from the gets go. And then when I read the screenplay, IT was just IT was IT was really beautiful.

I know that a feels like a strange thing to say, but there was so much beauty in the world of these women, and you really fell in love with them. A very limited window, really. I mean, some of the across in the film, they have a very limited window of screen time to make you fall in love with them and be absolutely invested in what is gonna en to them. And i'm just blown away by the writing and by um the actresses in the film. Um cause you are so desperate for each one of them to come out of IT on the other side and you know the movie is like chilling but it's it's heartbreaking to I have there's one scene in particular when you .

talk about them having such a short time to make an impact where this girl like impacting her new apartment and I remembers just feeling so much. I got I remember being like in my very first place and you're in the new city and you feel like such a like a big kid with your whole life in in first and I remember that just being like the emotion as I was watching man and being like, oh god so even in like you just get like a brief moment with each of those women and and I .

was just done so well yeah and you know i'm sure that um the listening ers are very very into as they should be like the details and accuracy factual accuracy and there are so many details in the movie that are lifted straight from the the true story but you just the way you're talking even about that scene with the apartment, you know, IT just reminds me that heart of the objective was also to give each woman that we need, like, quite a different personality and different kind of entry point to how they meet this man, how they interact with this man.

Because, again, like emotionally IT felt important to kind of establish IT wouldn't matter what your personality is and how you meet a person or how careful you are or how sweet you are or how tough you try to see like none of that guarantees your protection from someone if they are determined to harm me you um and even though there I think there are really, really interesting things in movie around like the ways that some of these women managed to survive. IT also feels like an exercise in at least putting the shame where IT belongs, which is in the hands of a person is harmful. All um and never I remember actually at one point I forgot about this.

This is maybe a little spoiler but um but also we the way that you know I play the the backs on the dating game and so um I survive and I remember at one point one of the producers asking me if my character should have like some kind of really clever plan that got her out of danger and I was like, you know in most movies I would say sure blind luck isn't a great way for your heroine survive a situation. But IT would also feel like a disservice to all the really brilliant women who didn't survive. Know sometimes IT is just blind luck.

Well, in the truth of IT is he did go for so and he was successful at taking lives of so many different women. Yeah, that to say, oh, like this percent .

SHE just needed to outsmart him yeah like .

it's the one person in the parking lot who just like, scarred them away. You're like, and you just think you're .

lucky stars like and the other .

so you said that your true crime fascination, you had been into IT before but always like like for me I always say like crime drunk are born not made like I since I was little like did when did you start for you?

Yeah, I guess I can't really remember a time that IT wasn't there. I mean, you know this isn't really true crime person but I remember sitting in like the dentist office and they would have those books about like like like natural disasters with a titanic or something like there is just something about um the the grim in the macao that is that is always kind of called to me and so yeah that's always sort of been there lurking and that you know ended up being something else for me.

You broke your your book about you being in new york for the first time which like when you are like a kid and I am like you were like telling the land you are about to be your own true crime stories like running around the city of new york. I really .

what ten I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know like my yeah my parents because I I I was a stub burn little child and I was like, I anna, be an actress and I want to audition for broadway shows. And you know they worked full time jobs and so they they drove mean in new york for a couple editions. And then we, girl, if you really want to do this, we likely this is, you need to figure at all.

So my brother and I was like, two years old to me. He, he and I would go down on like a greyhound t bus and like to audition for stuff in in new york city um which yeah I don't know. There is like an overconfidence and a trust there that I think also comes from growing up in a place where I grew up in mine.

And you know like no one locked their doors at night. When I moved to L A, got, I really am like a walking to me. This is off.

No, when I moved to lay, my roommates were constantly having a remind to lock the door. I just wouldn't lock the door just White. Because also in mine, if you lock your car door at night, it'll freeze over. So we don't like anything, girl.

I mean, I lived in like inDiana and it's not wild out there.

But like I know that's crazy ice. That's really crazy great.

Like but I think about that all the time when you're like to go back, what you're just talking about like I remember I went to vagus when I was like twenty two and like me, my roommate, just like we like didn't want to pay for caps. We like caught a ride with a guy who had a hook for and like you're .

not just trigger me. You're like a creepy ghostly that's like a classic .

can gost story don't know but yet i'm like walking down allies and it's like the stuff that IT truly is luck and like sometimes IT is truly just luck that saves you. It's a miracle of both .

here today no plebe.

that's absolutely. So how did you where there are certain things that you pulled from your own life, like situations you've been in, reject that. Like how did you even begin to prepare for this character?

yeah. So I mean, there are things in the movie that are like there's a couple little bit drugs, but a you know for example, my character, there's that seen in the opening when we first meet my character and having like a very bad audition, the cost directors are they were so funny. So wonder the day while we were shooting IT, I was like, hey, would you guys do this like we just say these couple lines with me.

I'm probably going to cut IT, but I don't know. I might be interesting um where they ask me if i'm willing to do nudity. This guy makes a very like very specific and weird remark about my body.

And that happened to me for beta when I was nineteen. Yes, for beta in an audition. Yeah crazy, absolutely crazy. So there is .

also did a version on nett like IT pops up like actually happened yeah.

yeah, yeah oh my god. Yeah um no bit lab. There is also a degree to which I I really had fun making a period piece and like you know playing up the kind of seventies of IT all but also like some of this stuff happened not that long ago, some of the little like juicy little little bits but you think, well, no one say that now and I know you know I was not recent for me yeah IT was not like relegated to the nineteen seventies yeah .

was five minutes ago holy crap .

yeah there's a there's also like this is dumb. But there's a sign ah that's on the door when i'm about to go out on stage that says like checker lipstick and that like that that stage talk shows that stuff of like last chance to check your makeup that's like written under the mirror that a rape before you go out into like live T V. So yeah, just think a bunch of little easter x like that.

I like, like, how do people know that though? Like, if they don't know the best. Like.

this is all the insider.

Somebody know what. Stay mad. So how do you when you think about being in something like this for was IT really six weeks like yeah well .

ah and I was like thinking about the character for two years but then like was oh god i'm responsible for all of IT for like six weeks and then and then you have about six weeks of like uh hard prep so you're like finding the locations and um actually like really mapping out movie and then we filmed for twenty four days which is not enough time. Oh my god.

you do that whole thing .

in twenty four days yeah .

yes that's intense.

He was A T A IT makes me hot. Just thinking about like how much we were running around. Is that Normal? No, no.

Oh my god. no. Um I mean it's Normal for like ti movies that take place in one location. Yeah IT was a lot, but I also I think I am like maybe a little bit of an a journal in june.

I because I would I was like, oh, my favorite animal is me when I when the schedule slightly bind where like the wave IT like I get a weird rush of dog in where i'm like we're we're going to finish the day. We're going to get every shot that we need on this day. God, demand. So it's like very exciting.

How did you think about coming off that? And like but in more specifically, like even out of the space, like they're kind of living in like a dark world for a while. Yeah, do you take a break from, do you have like a true crime detox? Are you are you ready to like, jump back into the extra crime projects?

God, I I think that you know, like when I would go home for the day, I would probably just put something like mindless on on youtube like something like .

or what's your mindless?

What is your great pleasure? This this is very silly, but I think that at the time that um we were filming the movie, I didn't know of the try guys but when we were filling the movie the try guys had like a infidelity scandal thing like youtube my point and so I was like, what is this? And I like watched a couple of videos and I don't get IT but watching IT and I was like, okay, this is fine. This is just like guys being silly and I don't know one of them like cheated on the right so fuck that guy, but you I don't know whatever.

So I would just like put that .

on his docker rabbit, how that would be like find this because I like, can even think about like finding, yeah, oh, what's my nighttime? No, you know, comfort show? I was like this. This is, know a lot of people.

they say IT is like a comfort thing to watch the same thing over over again IT gives me, I can't watch the same thing over.

not even like the office. You don't like a show like that that you're like, yeah ah just IT on no.

I think I broke. I don't I don't know. Like everyone's like, yes.

just got, I don't wait. Do you watch any movies like more than less? Because rebel Wilson has the thing.

He has never seen a moving more than once. I never, not once. He says her favorite movie is a leave their own.

And SHE has seen IT twice in her life. That's her favorite movie. That's crazy.

I think i've seen maybe some movies. Well, my daughter's movies aside, i've seen loose. I like the tops two times. I cannot really what the guy I know it's going to know.

Someone needs to study your brain and rebel Wilson's brain, figure out what happening there. Because honestly, I kind of wish I was more like that, like, I wish I was more like I I D want to want something news, something new. And then there's just a laziness thing where you're like off whatever.

It's a comfort thing like, you know what to expect in a world where everything's crazy and got things coming. You the comfort like knowing exactly what's coming next.

I guess it's probably I don't know for me IT might just be promising down the middle laziness because I like I I just can't think of anything else to watch. I just reached rock. fine. I always so good.

Okay, that's fair. I am like variant. I always said I was reality T V person, but I like to the love blind thing, right? So I just, oh my god.

i'm like, I think so I got to like the first reveal, the like Taylor and what's.

The .

face ever, but only to her totally.

You got, have that friend though, to be like, i'm going to watch this thing and you have to watch this thing so that we can text about IT.

H, I love you. So do you think you'll .

do another true crime? I I mean I would be really, really open to IT. I I think that um it's really vert ground um psychologically um so I don't know I well as i'm saying that i'm also like i've been known as like musical salary for the last decade. IT certainly wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for me to be like oh no, oh no my pigeon hole does like the murder girl that .

would we find me I think that this point you can be the of this whole thing you like to that you can do whatever you want, which is like the .

best place to I wouldn't mind I mean I I really found IT rewarding to to digging in um to the case you know I was really, really fortunate to have um that morphy who was the prosecutor in rodneys twenty ten retrial as a resource he was so so generous like he was not we did not have the money to pay him so he was not being paid um but he really made himself available and and not just as a kind of factual resource which he he often was but there were times where just speaking to him was so emotionally grounding because again, he's someone who really obviously prioritized victims first and you know even just speaking to him what kind of like sometimes like really resent me on what was important about telling the story and and math introduced me to detective well now the honorable progress but at the time detective krag roberson, who um I mean was the guy who cared enough about what was happening to actually take IT seriously because as i'm sure you know um as I know you know um really the story of ronnie cola is a story of laender cement negligence and incompetence and IT makes my body temperature go up every time I even think about IT like IT ah I like really really makes me so upset um and I think even speaking to crabs and a mamos y IT was kind of illuminating for me because I mean you think about, okay, a serial killer who's been Operating for over a decade. This Young detective comes on the scene and kind of saves the day and the prosecutor that keeps them behind bars and connects all the dots and realizes that he's a serial mirror. It's kind of like a ready made hollywood story, but we don't really get into that in the movie because IT would also feel really emotionally dishonest ah because when I walk away from you know months of research about this case the feeling that i'm left with is heartbreak and really rage so they got .

to be the heroes. They were the hill and they were and that matters but because so many people failed before them that and .

they are just as angry about that.

And that's where, like i'll always say, I think there is the really good ones can recognize and acknowledge when they're d es.

And I even had a moment where I was like, oh no, like math has really been so helpful to me and I am not sure that he knows that, like, the movie is not .

pro enforcement.

And I was like, oh my god, oh god, is gonna bother him or hurt his feelings? I was he going to be angry? And then, I mean, he just put out a book and actually one of the about rodney and um yeah and he's actually going more about unfortunate that I am in the meeting so yeah we can appreciate that for sure I love you and you .

said that didn't make any money but like, I was surprised to learn you don't make .

any money on this there oh yeah yeah um I mean, you know I think that were both sort of stepped in some really valid ethical questions around true crime. And I IT believe me this was never um a money making venture for me um because you know all the resources went to actually just making the movie. But IT wasn't until um the uh toronto ilm festivals where the the movie premiere and it's this big um film festival for a someone to buy movies and that is eventually netflix spot. Um but IT wasn't until like the week before tif that I thought, oh oh, the movie is to make money I wish because I like time I went like, let me know when the movie happens to like, oh god, i'm responsible for this and then I was just making the movie barely made the deadline to get into tif and then I was like, oh, oh, there is like money gonna be exchanging hands and yeah like I sort asked myself the question of, like, do you feel gross about this and I did and so yeah so i'm not making money off of the the movie the the money is going to erb has gone to um rain and to the national center for victims of vent crime, which was a charity that mammoths recommended to me. We're done more with both of them.

They're like both. A incredible organization goes to ask you like how you got connective with them but that's perfect.

Yeah yeah um so yeah I think that there are uh, it's still a complicated area but ah that felt like certainly like the least that I should do well.

I I like I it's a huge it's a huge thing to do and it's like it's a it's a weird place to navigate.

And like I mean, like someone who's like still trying to figure IT out, I think that I think these stories have to be told and I think that there's probably a Better way than it's been done in the past, right? And it's like how do we how do we do right by the people who are in them? How do we it's there's a lot of a lot of heavy questions, but I don't know.

It's not black and way. Ethics is never black and way. It's a little grey.

And yeah and you know, again, like when i've shown the movie to friends, there are immediately like a handful questions that they want to know, like we did that really happen. That really happen. One of the ones that comes up a lot is like, what was he really working at the los Angeles times in like ninety seven and you're like, yeah with his real name with his real name like I he'd been in jail for horrible crimes already at that point and you know constantly let him out freely based on vives, by the way, because which all words were just like, yeah, I don't know he seems chill.

I think he's reformed how you go and then yeah, he like, you know, he changed his name in new york for a while but then he like got a job at the los angles times under his real name so yeah so the point being there is um there are certain things that you are like, oh my god did that actually happened and then yeah there's a degree to which I know the names of uh a lot of the sort of players and in the movie are changed as kind of a nod to the idea that like I couldn't possibly capture the the essence of a real person if I had one hundred years, let alone nine minute movie. And you know, as always, the idea was mostly to be trying to reach a kind of larger emotional truth about the danger that we walk around with all the ways we try to stay safe. And there are things in the movie that Frankly feel like they could save a life.

You know I I was watching that other netflix show. Um worst x ever and I was lily, like, oh my god, no, do what money code did like, please, please. And he survived. She's okay. The lady I was yelling at the TV as though I could like crawl through the screen and back through time. So oh my god, it's just but I think there are like these tidbits that we get from these stories that remain in our subconscious and um and can ate us in almost chAllenging moments.

I think it's you know you talk about earlier trying to like, understand and can I can I gather all these tools to protect myself and I I always viewed IT as I think I read IT in like tana facebook he was talking about.

If I can be so hypervigilant like, surely statistically just won't happen to me like if i'm on the and I think that's a little bit of like the way that I have found at the way I know a lot of our listeners view IT is these stories often happen to us. And so if we can you know and it's not it's not the shame and it's not them, but it's like unfortunate. I live in this world where I have to you hold the keys a certain way and check my baxi and look here and do all the things. And if I can pick up all the tips and tricks, maybe I like .

this is fascinating because a again, I I think the case that really um captured me when I was coming out of this really abusive situation was the Chris watts case can give me started on family and .

I letters oh my g i'm .

about to like I it's like my .

life dreams to like just fund a study at some university because I cannot wrap my head and I I feel like not nearly enough has been done to understand like how someone goes and it's not sixty. It's nine but IT feels like A I mean.

yeah unfortunately I could sit here and talk about Christmas all day but will very briefly like the more that I every transcript I read every or recording every text message that ever sent to anybody that ever been made available, the public, I just it's frustrating. Big woman, obviously is more than frustrating. It's enranged.

but he is really sucked in .

to that one. I go, I IT became IT became crazy. I forgot that. I actually like, forgot that I went from being kind of a casual to crime percent to like obsessed. And I was reading an old journal, and I mean, old. This was again, right after I left my abusive relationship, like coincided with when I learned about the cross waz case. And I was even aware at the time because I wrote IT down like, oh, I think I submit my own trauma and just trying to figure out what happened in Chris watts mind, so that I can understand what the fuck happened here. Because how did you go from the most loving, the most wonderful, and to so abusive, making me feel crazy all these things overnight, like what happened? And one of the endless for ruining things about the Chris well case is I don't think he would be able to give you insight if you put him in therapy for the next fifty years like I just he is so asleep to himself and and his family suffer the consequences of that.

Yeah, I I think there are certain people who just will put themselves above everyone.

But here's the rob in my opinion. Yeah, I think that a guy like Chris watts and a guy like my ex, I think genuinely experience themselves to be the victims like I I don't think that they're like, screw IT. I want to kill my family.

I don't care. I think that they are in such a state of like this kind of toddler asc terror that they're just like, no, I just I am in a bad situation and I don't want to feel bad. This feels so bad that i'm allowed you whatever I have to do, because this feeling is so bad and i'm such a victim here. I like the idea, like being caught in an affair makes you feel so bad. Do you think you are like your family.

like I oh my god. Do you think it's the idea of being caught or that there in the way of what he thinks? happiness?

I know that there's different theme. There's different.

I believe the I.

I, I don't know my theory is that IT was less like, no, you're standing in the way of what I want and so i'm gonna pe you off to face the earth IT was more like, I need to be seen as a good guy and a guy who leaves his family is not a good guy, but a guy who whose family disappears is still a guy. And I can't be the guy that had an affair on my pregnant wife that is so intolerable to that. Again, everything that was his his shame around having an affair, which, by the way, that is an asshole move but like, so what do you can get like so your White social friends think you're a dick so what like SHE would have gone on to live a beautiful life? It's, oh my god, your daughters and it's all just like, oh, I don't want to a deal with the shame of people knowing that i'm not a good guy so i'm enacting that shame on my family is IT.

Do you think it's a little bit of when you care more about what the world thinks you than what you think of yourself? Because I mean, because I can imagine, like I can imagine having to live with that even if everyone thought I was amazing, I couldn't live with myself. But he would rather live with.

live with a lie. I mean, I I I think it's just like what I did, I think from somebody like that from many people who have committed terrible crimes, I think it's possible that their perspective is I would have been such a victim and almost like I did what I had to do to could survive um but to them, someone thinking that you're kind of a dead who cheated on his wife is akin to a iolaus.

And I mean, I think that sort of plays out in the movie like rodney was diagnosed with a number of kind of contradictory disorders over the years by different doctors. Again, I can't know him and i'm not really fucked and interested, but I don't know gone in my head, i'd say just psychotic and sexual statism and that's really just an accident, right? And statistically or not that likely to meet an honest to god psychopath, we are incredibly likely to meet people who are emotionally incapable of dealing with their own pain and their own shame and having them in acted on us.

And there's some stuff in the movie that feels more like that. And maybe that's not a perfectly accurate representation of his psychology. Again, there's part of me just like I couldn't care us whatever did you're pathetic.

You're writing in hell fine. But that moment of going, oh, you feel like a victim right now. And I now flying exactly. I feel very scared. And so I know that I need to absorb all this shame for you so that I can actually survive the situation.

And I think that that's a situation that women know really well and probably know IT on the data day in much, much smaller ways, where it's just like, you ruin my day, you could ruin my month like you. There is a whole story line with my character and her neighbor and know he can pressures me into sex. And it's socks, and it's a really weird piece of the story.

And yes, of course, for a woman, there is that question of, like, are you gonna physically harm me? But there's also the question of, like, are you going to psychological torture me every time I step out my front door because you're my neighbor? And like, I don't know, maybe it's easier for me to just go, okay, I guess will have sex and neither version is good. It's all awful. But like, these are the .

choices that you can live with and live with on a daily basis.

And if I stand up in a meeting and say that I think brian's idea isn't that great, what are the consequences is going to be for me around the office? And like making those bargains everyday is is also part of the fabrick at the movie.

How did I not know? And whatever you are, are not comfortable talking about how did you get out of your relationship? Because I think that such IT always is like I think about the takeaway of the movie, but I think there's somebody that people would look at and be like she's fucking in in a enderley like but you got out of a situation and what did you take for you?

I wish I had a simple answer. I know I think that um those stories are always like really messy and complicated and um yeah they were kind of steps along the way um but certainly there was a there was a day that we were having a conversation and you know I felt like I was always just trying to kind of you know while walking on x shows trying to sort of go lake do not see what you're doing you know like I just thought like surely he's reason surely he can be reasonable and and he can see what's happening which wasn't going to happen.

But I was obviously holding on to some hope for a while. But there was a David, I really. I almost did a kind of version of the end sequence of the money where I just stopped pushing back and and IT was almost like I went into I know that you've been there, that everyone listings where it's like you almost go okay at this point.

I think I just need to go into like information gathering mode. I'm actually not going to push back at all. I'm just gonna kind of agree with everything he's saying with his whole word view, with all of IT, just so that he will keep talking and I can almost get myself the information that i'm subconsciously avoidable seeing and like just listening to him sort of describe where his like world view was coming from. Her like his um mindset was like, oh no, like I was I was just kind of so much more illuminating than any new argument that we d had um because IT really was like, okay, i'm creating a really, really safe space for you and you're talking crazy friend so um yeah that's when I like we wanted to a couple therapy the next session and I was like, I think we need to cut contact for a while and a while was many months but but MC is complicated what I and yeah IT was done and I put his stuff in storage and and I was .

that you stop a weird storage locker somewhere no no.

no. I actually I would .

like to burn IT down IT.

You know, it's funny, there are so many times were like, I should have but then i'm like that would have been a gift to him.

And you talking about.

Oh, baby, yeah. Well.

I love and I I thank you for anything on this story because I do I think it's so important when talking about the stories come up. The shame all of IT like IT feels. I think people are waiting for like these big moments or like the actual like physical abuse are all these big things when it's like it's in their daily life and IT if relationships aren't making you Better and making you happy, like that abuse and enough itself.

Um so thank you. I just think that was really before and I like pay attention. I know I think are out of time.

I'm in your schedule, so I don't know.

do you I think you're the one like this giant press surface and mazing movie that's coming out. Do you want to tell everyone where they can watch IT when they can watch IT?

Um so ah it's on netflix starting october eighteen. So I think that's probably already happening um depending on this. Yes um and um yeah um it's a woman of the hour and it's on your it's on your neffy right now.

You guys run, don't walk. IT is truly amazing. Start to finish, you guys.

and the first five minutes you've .

had the rest of IT. If you this crime drink, there are no this you guys is made for you. You're gonna ve IT enjoy IT. Thank you so much.

This was so fantastic.

Thank you. Welcome are well, thanks again, a serious example letting us hang out in their studio. I feel like a real grown up biid podcasts.

Ter, now and don't forget to all the show added to your library, you can also follow crime junky. And we're going to have brand new episodes the last friday of every month of C. J.

But if you can't wait until then, you can hear crime junkie radio on the serious exam APP for your twenty four seven true crime fix. You can follow me Ashley flowers on instagram and ashly flowers crime junk I on tiktok, and make sure you also follow crime junky at crime junky podcast. I'll see you next month.

I hope you guys enjoying that conversation half as much as I did. Anna was truly, you guys, I, they say, never meet like your heroes, the people you love. SHE is a pleasure.

She's everything you think he would be in person. I always love knowing that she's truly a treasure, so make sure you follow her. Go watch the movie, and please, please, please go check out the episode serial killer rodin alcohol. If you want to hear the crime junky version of that story, it's linked to write in the show notes.