Elizabeth Banks is still reeling from the wild success of Pitch Perfect 2, her first major studio directorial effort in which she also stars as Gail, the over-sharing a capella commentator with big hair. “It’s really surreal,” she told Yahoo Movies during a recent phone interview.
The musically inclined comedy sequel, whose ensemble includes Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, and Hailee Steinfeld, scored a huge $70 million opening, unexpectedly surpassing its weekend rival Mad Max: Fury Road. To date, Pitch Perfect 2 has made nearly $300 million worldwide, roughly 10 times its $29 million production budget.
The film should also be a boon to Banks’s directorial aspirations, as she hit it big with audiences her first time out.When it came to that astonishing debut, though, Banks revealed to Yahoo it coincided with a difficult time in her life. “It was a weekend with big ups and downs for me,” she said. “I suffered a personal loss the same weekend that the movie opened. I was really just a mess of emotions for about 10 days after the film opened.”
Now that time has passed, she admitted, “I still don’t know that I processed it. It was the experience of making the movie and life goes on. Even though I know that it has had an impact for me in the world I’m still, like, getting up and making my kids’ lunch every morning
