Anna Kendrick Horrified by Her "Britney Spears Smile" in Red Carpet Photos: "There's Nothing but Fear in the Eyes"

Plus, find out why shooting Pitch Perfect 2 felt "very much" like the first movie

By Zach Johnson Mar 27, 2015 3:45 PMTags
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Anna Kendrick walked her first red carpet at the 52nd Annual Tony Awards in 1998, and 17 years later, the 29-year-old actress admits she's just as uncomfortable posing for photos as she was at 12 years old.

"Every year that goes by, I think that my on-camera smile is going to get easier," Kendrick says in British Glamour's May 2015 issue. To the Pitch Perfect 2 star's chagrin, "It's got worse and worse, to the point where I'm giving that Britney Spears terrified smile, where the lips are upturned, but there's nothing but fear in the eyes...I'm also the queen of ruining group photos. All my friends will be smiling and looking really pretty, and I'll be there pretending to pick my nose—or actually picking my nose. It's a fine line."

Though Kendrick rarely looks out of place on the red carpet, it's not her favorite place to be.

In fact, the actress tells the magazine that she's not the kind of celebrity who actively seeks attention. "Part of it is because I'm dressed really boring in sweatpants and sneakers, so those pictures just don't sell. You need to be really styled—in the perfect leather jacket and little booties, and have your red lipstick and your coffee—and I haven't managed that yet," she says. "If I've got jeans on, it's a good day."

The older Kendrick gets, the more she takes her public image into consideration.

"I feel like 29 is just total garbage. I'd rather just be 30 for two years. When I say I'm 29, I think I sound like I'm trying to make sure everybody knows I'm not 30. I look like a teenager. I really like '50s-style dresses, but they make you look childish, and I don't want to look like one of those people trying to look like a little schoolgirl," the starlet says. "I'm trying to give a message to the world that I am a grown up."

That being said, Kendrick isn't serious about everything.

When she reunited with Anna Camp, Brittany Snow, Rebel Wilson and co. to film Pitch Perfect 2 last year, it felt "a lot like school," the actress recalls. "Some of the girls got me into The Bachelor, so that became a group texting moment for us, and when you get back together, you remember every little quirk of everyone's personalities. Because we're basically shooting the same movie again—different scenarios, but in a lot of ways, very much the same, so it was trippy. It was like, 'Didn't we make this already? Was the first one just a fever dream? Or a premonition, and this is actually the real thing?'"

To read Anna Kendrick's full interview and see her sexy photo shoot, pick up British Glamour's May 2015 issue, on sale April 2.