Anna Kendrick fought not to have love interest in Pitch Perfect 3

Anna Kendrick really didn't want producers to give her Pitch Perfect 3 character a love interest.

The actress reprises her role as Beca Mitchell in the third installment of the musical movie franchise, which follows a group of competitive a capella singers known as The Barden Bellas.

In the 2012 original movie, Beca was romanced by fellow singer Jesse Swanson, played by Skylar Astin, but for the new release Anna begged the screenwriters to change the script so that her relationship with music producer Theo (Guy Burnet) was strictly platonic.

"One of the big changes was that the guy who shows up (Theo) originally was written as a romantic interest," she revealed to Collider. "I pushed back pretty hard on that because I thought it was a little problematic that a guy was coming into (Beca's) life and being the more active character."

The new movie sees aspiring music talent Beca reunite with her Bella pals for performances on an overseas United Service Organizations (USO) tour. In one concert sequence, Beca catches the eye of Theo, and the script originally included a kiss between them, but Anna was never going to let that happen as she didn't feel it fit with her character's personality.

"Even when we were filming, there was a, 'Can't you do (a take) where they kiss at the end?' And I was like - 'No - we for sure can't,'" the 32-year-old shared, before divulging details about the original storyline. "Originally Beca was so in love with (Theo) and thought he was so cute, she was tongue-tied and falling over herself in front of him. I was just like, 'No, no, no.' The idea of Beca being really intimidated by dudes just didn't work well."

Directed by Trish Sie, Pitch Perfect 3 also stars Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Hailee Steinfeld and Anna Camp, and hits cinemas from 20 December (17).