Anna Kendrick added edge to her Trolls alter ego

Anna Kendrick didn’t want her Trolls character to be a “typical animated princess”.

The American actress lends her vocals to DreamWorks’ new animated movie as Poppy, the leader of a troll colony who must fight off evil creatures known as Bergens, who have take over her village. Directors Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn went straight to actress Anna to voice the part and in return the 31-year-old gave her all in making the character her own.

“She helped us craft Poppy,” Mike told Entertainment Weekly. “Anna didn’t want her to be your typical animated princess, and Anna brought this edge to her. It was really fun to work with Anna and come up with this intelligence that Poppy has. Even though she’s still super naive, it becomes her superpower.”

Also starring in the film is popstar-turned-film star Justin Timberlake, voicing Poppy’s sidekick Branch. While the movie features classic songs, such as Diana Ross’ I’m Coming Out, Justin also lent his own material to the venture.

“What’s really great is once we brought Justin into the process, he said, ‘Hey, I can make some music for you,’” Walt recalled. “That was incredible because we got to some story points where we just couldn’t find the right song. That’s why Justin made Can’t Stop the Feeling for us. He crafted that after we talked about it for a long time, and then he went out and did it, and lo and behold, he made it a hit song, which I honestly can’t believe to this day.”

The two filmmakers were keen to cast Justin due to his acting skills and “excellent” sense of humour, so were over the moon when he penned music especially for the film.