Anne Hathaway: “If It All Ended Tomorrow, I Could Still Hold My Head High”

“Annie’s making salmon poke for lunch. Would you like the hot sauce on the side?” 

Anne Hathaway ’s assistant texts me as I head to her office on the Upper West Side. Does she cook too? I think, as I find myself faced with a perfectly prepared dish: salmon, rice, edamame, and avocado, garnished with thinly sliced ​​cucumber and a generous sprinkling of furikake. Hathaway tells me she and her husband make salmon for dinner every Monday, and she looks forward to eating the leftovers for lunch every Tuesday. “I’m not offended if you don’t like it, or if you prefer something else,” she says. But later, when I tell her how delicious it is, she’s visibly relieved. “I was secretly hoping you’d like it,” she confesses.

We sit on her couch to talk. Hathaway is makeup-free, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, wearing a green Guest in Residence St. Patrick’s Day sweater and jeans. She’s just returned from a Pilates session with her trainer, Monique Eastwood. Normally, her office is a quiet space where she can concentrate, but right now it’s “a giant walk-in closet,” she says, with at least ten racks of designer clothes from designers like Loewe and Valentino, about a hundred pairs of heels, and a pile of hats, belts, and other accessories from the promotional tours for her latest films (The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Mother Mary). She says she’s having fun “playing dress-up” with her stylist, Erin Walsh. At one point, Hathaway wears 9-inch Rick Owens boots that would break anyone’s ankle, but she struts with the ease of a runway model.

These days, she can’t help but smile when she thinks about where she is in life. Her children, aged six and ten (she hadn’t yet revealed she was expecting her third child, ed.) are “in this really fun phase where we all love being together, even though I understand things could change,” she says. “We’ll always be happy to be with them; I don’t know if we’ll be happy with them,” she clarifies with a laugh. “So, for now, we’re all in it together. Adam and I are enjoying every moment. I’m having a wonderful time with my family, I’m living in my dream city, and work seems to be going really, really well,” she continues. “So, for me, it’s a really good time while everything else is falling apart, which feels really out of place.” We agree on the need for cheerful distractions, given the general state of the world. “There’s that famous phrase: we need bread, but we also need roses. And I’d be so sad without roses,” Hathaway says. “Life demands so much from everyone just to keep up. Why should we work so hard if not to experience joy, to contribute to beauty, or to experience it? I think we need to learn to keep all these things in mind at the same time.”

Despite working in the industry for more than half her life, her spark hasn’t faded. “She still has a sense of wonder,” says Michael Showalter, who directed Hathaway in The Idea of ​​You and the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s Verity, due out this fall. “She’s someone who’s still excited about the opportunity to do this job, and she doesn’t seem to have become disillusioned despite the fame, the spotlight, and everything that comes with it.” Hathaway maintains that sense of wonder and refuses to take her career for granted. “For example, working with Chris (Nolan)—it’s the third time—never gets old,” she says of the Odyssey director, who previously cast her in The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar. “You feel even more amazed by how rare it is. To have that experience once is already rare. Twice is a gift. Three times: I don’t even have the words to describe it. And so I’m very aware of how determined I am to be in harmony with all of this, because look at this,” she says, gesturing to the room full of elegant dresses. “If I didn’t enjoy it, then I would really ask myself: What’s wrong with me? If I couldn’t have a positive outlook on all of this, it would be a waste.” She’s having a busy year. Due to delays, reshoots, and release dates, Hathaway has five films coming out in the space of six months. “It’s crazy that four years of work is coming out in six months,” she says.

Last spring, she starred in Mother Mary and The Devil Wears Prada 2; this summer, there’s Odyssey . She’s also starring in a sci-fi thriller, The End of Oak Street , opposite Ewan McGregor, and in Verity . And she’s working on Yesteryear, an adaptation of the best-selling novel for which her production company, Somewhere Pictures, has acquired the rights; she’s signed on to an untitled comedy about “an FBI sting at a wedding,” from Your Friends & Neighbors creator Jonathan Tropper ; and she’s gearing up to shoot The Princess Diaries 3. In A24’s psychological drama Mother Mary, Hathaway plays a pop star determined to make a comeback who clashes with her former best friend, a costume designer played by Michaela Coel. Besides belting out an entire album of songs by Jack Antonoff, Charli XCX, and FKA twigs, she also had to dance. At first, after seeing some footage of herself, she thought, “This is awful… I don’t know if I can ask people to go see it.” She went home and told her husband she was leaving the film. But eventually, she says, “I came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be a shame if I got fired, but it would be a shame if I quit.” She took dance lessons for months and continued working on her singing during post-production, after filming wrapped. A year later, when she finally liked what she heard, she returned to the studio with Antonoff to re-record almost everything, earning his admiration: “You worked hard.”

Hathaway’s other recent release, The Devil Wears Prada 2, needs no introduction. When I tell her I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that her character, Andy Sachs, is working at Runway again and not, say, The New York Times , she replies: “We thought about it a lot. I was like, ‘But I threw my phone in the fountain!'” In the end, I think Aline (Brosh McKenna, the screenwriter) hit the nail on the head… We can be so many things at once. Just because you work for a women’s magazine doesn’t mean you’re not a serious person.” Odyssey was a homecoming of sorts. “I hadn’t worked on a set with Chris in 12 years,” she says. “And since I’ve worked so hard over the last 12 years, both as a person and as an actress, I was thrilled to show him what I’ve done.” Nolan tells me he’s noticed. “There’s a maturity in his performances now,” he says. “It’s not that something was missing before, it’s just that she’s evolved; life makes us all evolve. Her work conveys a sense of serene calm that is truly extraordinary.” And despite being a veteran, she adds, Hathaway is always trying to challenge herself. “She’s never satisfied with what she’s done in the past, nor with what she’s doing in the present. She’s always trying to achieve something that’s just beyond her reach.”

In The Odyssey , Hathaway plays Penelope , who spends two decades fending off over a hundred suitors while waiting for her husband, Odysseus, to return from war. “We think of Penelope as a model of patience,” Hathaway says. “But I was interested in her raw side. I was interested in the anger, emotion, and passion she must have felt for him during those twenty years.” She and Damon, who plays Odysseus, spent a lot of time talking about the bond between their characters. “In an era when so many marriages were made for political expediency, they had chosen each other and appreciated the value of what they had, understanding that not everyone was so fortunate,” Hathaway says. The fact that she herself experiences a similar relationship offscreen is a huge help. “With marriage, I think sharing your life with someone is a really challenging thing because it’s your life, 100 percent yours, and you have the right to do what you want with it,” she says. “And so finding someone who makes you say, as wonderful as it is to experience this alone, sharing it with you makes me believe that we could be on to something better… I guess that’s rare, and I really feel like I’ve found it, and I don’t take that for granted.”

In The Odyssey, Hathaway plays Penelope, who spends two decades fending off over a hundred suitors while waiting for her husband, Odysseus, to return from war. “We think of Penelope as a model of patience,” Hathaway says. “But I was interested in her raw side. I was interested in the anger, emotion, and passion she must have felt for him during those twenty years.” She and Damon, who plays Odysseus, spent a lot of time talking about the bond between their characters. “In an era when so many marriages were made for political expediency, they had chosen each other and appreciated the value of what they had, understanding that not everyone was so fortunate,” Hathaway says. The fact that she herself experiences a similar relationship offscreen is a huge help. “With marriage, I think sharing your life with someone is a really challenging thing because it’s your life, 100 percent yours, and you have the right to do what you want with it,” she says. “And so finding someone who makes you say, as wonderful as it is to experience this alone, sharing it with you makes me believe that we could be on to something better… I guess that’s rare, and I really feel like I’ve found it, and I don’t take that for granted.”

Damon tells me he was “blown away” by Hathaway’s performance. He recalls one day on set when they were filming a scene, but the cameras were focused on the extras, eighty, ninety yards away. “Annie was giving it her all, with tears streaming down her face. I told her, ‘They can’t see you, save your energy.’ But she had this inexhaustible reservoir of emotion, and she wanted every actor she worked with to have the full performance,” he says. “I’ve always said that when the actor you’re working with is really great, they’re big enough for both of you, and everything else disappears. Just looking at them is completely transported. It’s like she’s created a whole world around you in her eyes, and it’s just the two of you. She literally swept me away.” Part of Hathaway’s generosity, as an actress and as a person, is the result of the self-work she’s done to overcome the “Hathahate” years and learn to “trust more and not give in to panic so easily,” she says. But that doesn’t mean she’s now immune to internet gossip.Damon tells me he was “blown away” by Hathaway’s performance. He recalls one day on set when they were filming a scene, but the cameras were focused on the extras, eighty, ninety yards away. “Annie was giving it her all, with tears streaming down her face. I told her, ‘They can’t see you, save your energy.’ But she had this inexhaustible reservoir of emotion, and she wanted every actor she worked with to have the full performance,” he says. “I’ve always said that when the actor you’re working with is really great, they’re big enough for both of you, and everything else disappears. Just looking at them is completely transported. It’s like she’s created a whole world around you in her eyes, and it’s just the two of you. She literally swept me away.” Part of Hathaway’s generosity, as an actress and as a person, is the result of the self-work she’s done to overcome the “Hathahate” years and learn to “trust more and not give in to panic so easily,” she says. But that doesn’t mean she’s now immune to internet gossip.

We live in an age where people feel very safe in taking for granted what they believe to be fact, and sometimes what they think is correct, other times it is not.

The night before our interview, she shared a video on her Instagram, showing the trick her hairstylist uses to give her face a little extra lift (two braids near each temple, pulled back and secured with bobby pins). The trick works so well on her that rumors have circulated in recent months that Hathaway had gotten a facelift. I tell her that I feel like posting the video was an explicit denial. “I wouldn’t say explicit. But we live in an age where people feel very safe taking for granted what they believe to be fact, and sometimes what they believe is accurate, other times not,” she responds diplomatically. “I would have preferred to never comment on anything and simply live in mystery without drawing attention to myself, but the speculation has become so insistent that you feel the need to make your truth known. And I’ll probably always wonder: should I have posted it or not?” Should I have just gone ahead and done what makes me happy and feel more confident on the red carpet? But I felt like the discussion was becoming a distraction. And besides, these are major medical decisions that people are taking for granted,” she adds. “I wanted to prove that no, I hadn’t made a major medical decision. It’s just a couple of braids.” She takes me in front of the mirror to show me the makeup on my hair, and I have to say, my eyes immediately look a little less tired. “And, by the way, the other thing I would say is that I might still decide to get a facelift someday,” she observes. If the rumors had circulated earlier in her career, she might not have taken it so well. “One of the characteristics of my younger self was that I was so afraid, and I think that fear made me too hard on myself,” Hathaway says. “I shudder to think that I might have inadvertently been hard on others when I was hard on myself. It makes me sick to think about it.”

Norman Jean RoyStella McCartney dress, Bulgari earrings. For the face, Vital Perfection Uplifting and Firming Advanced Eye Cream, Vital Perfection Concentrated Supreme Cream and Vital Perfection Intensive Wrinkle Spot Treatment A+, all Shiseido.

Hathaway says she was a “disaster” on the set of The Devil Wears Prada. But luckily, she was surrounded by “these amazing people who just took care of me, understood that I was 22, and made a lot of things right,” she says. Filming the sequel gave Hathaway a chance to start over. “You know when you have certain memories or moments in your life that you wish you could relive because you think, ‘God, I wish I could go back there and be the person I am now.’ That was exactly it,” she says. “I’ve always felt enormous gratitude for that movie and how I was protected, especially by director David Frankel. So it was exciting to be able to go back and say thank you, show all the work I’ve done on myself, and just try to be a lovely person every day.” Learning to be kinder to herself has made her kinder to others, too. “I’ve worked so hard in my life to—I’m sorry, it really makes me emotional to think about it,” she says, her eyes filling with tears—“to become a more positive, healthier, more confident person; I was really happy to be able to share all of this with the people who have been so formative and responsible for so many of the beautiful things in my life.” When I ask her if she still fears that everything could vanish overnight, she admits that she does. “But what I feel confident about now is how I will deal with it if it all were to vanish tomorrow. If nothing important were to ever happen to me again, I will still have had more than many others. And the truth is, of course, I want to keep challenging myself. I want to keep doing this work. I want to see what kind of actress I will be at fifty, sixty, seventy, and eighty—now it doesn’t seem that far away. But if it weren’t my destiny, I could certainly hold my head high and be very proud and very grateful for all the generosity that has been shown to me.”