She became a Hollywood star despite enduring industry misogyny and an abusive relationship. Now, she has poured her experiences into her directorial debut

This may be the year of the childless cat lady, but Anna Kendrick isn’t ready to team up with Taylor Swift just yet. “I don’t ever think about having kids, so I guess I spend just as little time thinking about weaponising that,” she says from the kitchen of her apartment in Los Angeles, hugging her grey cardigan close. One of the takeaways from the 39-year-old actor’s candidly funny 2016 book, Scrappy Little Nobody, in which she dished the dirt on the inherent weirdness of the film industry and her place in it, was: “Anna Kendrick in ‘Doesn’t Want Children’ Shock!” As she explained later, any child of hers would only end up being “another kid that your kid is going to have to fight when the water wars come”.

She sounds today like someone beyond even JD Vance’s comprehension: a woman who makes no apologies for wanting neither kids nor cats. “Here’s the best argument for why I don’t have kids,” she says, then explains how she was nodding off recently to the sound of TikTok cat videos. “I thought: ‘I’d have an easier time falling asleep with the weight of a cat on me. But I’m not responsible enough to own a cat. Someone should really make a robot cat that does all the purring and the kneading.’ And then I was like: wait, I’m not even up to the ‘cat lady’ part! Why would anyone trust me with a kid?”