Anna Kendrick Recalls Performing with Justin Timberlake While 'Really Sick' — and Why He Made Her Nervous

12/23/2024 12:28 PM

Kendrick recalled performing a cover with Timberlake while promoting 'Trolls' at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival while they were both under the weather

No one wants to get sick before they have to sing for a crowd — especially not Anna Kendrick when she needs to perform alongside Justin Timberlake.

During an appearance on the Dec. 20 episode of Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, the 39-year-old actress recalled performing a cover of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" with Timberlake while promoting Trolls at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival while they were both under the weather.

"We were both really sick," said Kendrick, who plays a troll named Poppy in the animated film franchise alongside Timberlake, 43, as Branch. Their cover of "True Colors" appears on the soundtrack.

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"He's so sweet, and we were both really, really sick. But he is one of the great all-time pop recording artists," she explained. "We did a very, very simple, version of 'True Colors,' and we just kept drilling it and drilling it and drilling it."

The Cannes experience quickly became nerve-wracking for Kendrick, who continued, "Right before we were about to go on, he was just singing his part to himself and added in, like, 20 riffs or whatever. And I went, 'Are you gonna do it like that?' And he was like, 'No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's fine!'"

At the time, she realized of Timberlake, "You still have access to so much of your voice that I do not have right now."

Kendrick added, "But he was very sweetly like, 'No, no. It's going to be exactly how we did it. It's gonna be fine.'"

In an interview from the 2016 Trolls promotional cycle, the Pitch Perfect star called the experience of working with Timberlake "obviously very exciting and intimidating but overall completely wonderful."

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She described the performance as a "bucket list thing," saying at the time, "In what context would I ever sing 'True Colors' with Justin Timberlake at Cannes? But it happened. Life's funny."

Kendrick and Timberlake have since starred in Trolls sequels including Trolls World Tour and Trolls Band Together, the latter of which saw the "SexyBack" artist reunite with *NSYNC for the song "Better Place."