Woman of the Hour‘s dark subject matter took its toll on the star and first-time director.

Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with the Netflix true-crime thriller, which centers on the appearance of real-life serial killer Rodney Alcala in a 1978 episode of The dating game. In addition to directing and producing the project, Kendrick stars as Cheryl Bradshaw, the woman Alcala chose over the other bachelorettes as her date at the end of the show.

Although Kendrick wasn’t overly concerned about the film’s historical accuracy, she dove into the research to learn more about Alcala and his many victims, which could number as many as 130 people. Some of the details she discovered ultimately informed the way she directed the film, which does not shy away from depicting the brutality of Alcala’s sadistic crimes.

“I don’t think I’ve gotten through the week without bursting into tears,” she says Entertainment weekly. “I did all this research, which was less about getting every little detail, because no one wants to see a movie that’s basically a visual encyclopedia. But for example, I remember looking up one of the women who was murdered, and this newspaper article from the ’70s gave her address and I thought, ‘I know exactly where that is.'”

Kendrick recognized the location in Los Angeles and knew the woman’s home was close to the beach. “I had this horrible feeling and I thought, ‘Oh my God, she would have heard the ocean. He broke in through her window and she was on the ocean. She would have heard the ocean.’ And something about that just ruined me.”

The aftermath of the murder is depicted in the film, and after reading the newspaper article from the time, Kendrick called her screenwriter, Ian MacAllister McDonald, and asked him to start the scene on the water. The detail also fits with a larger theme of the film: violence in nature. That Alcala’s crimes are often depicted as taking place in a breathtaking natural landscape was an intentional thematic decision on Kendrick’s part.

“Ultimately, I really focused on nature in the film, because something like the desert, an isolated hilltop, or the ocean feels like something that at one moment is the safest, most revitalizing, most healing place, but in an instant becomes the ultimate place can become.

The visual also reflects the film’s themes of the dangers and rewards of intimacy. “That’s what we risk when we open ourselves up physically or mentally to other people: This can be the most beautiful and rewarding part of my life, but in the blink of an eye it can be the most terrifying and dangerous moment of my life,” she says . explains.

As a director, working with such difficult and serious subjects meant finding a balance on set between the playful, creative energy required to make a film and the respect owed to Alcala’s real-life victims. “I think everyone in the film industry is used to going from high to low on a daily basis and having your best friend be your nemesis and then at the end of the movie come back to your best friend, let alone the day.” ,” says Kendrick. “So everyone was really respectful of having a good time and joking around, but when we were dealing with something about the material, whether that was filming the actual scenes and performances or talking to my cinematographer. .. (we were) taking it so seriously and treating it with so much reverence.”

Woman of the Hour will be released on Netflix on Friday.