Anna Hathaway has come a long way since The Princess Diaries, although speaking to her in person you sort of forget everything she’s done, from Brokeback Mountain to The Devil Wears Prada and now Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, because she still looks like that young girl thrust into the role of suddenly becoming a princess. Although she might look the same, she’s definitely matured in both her acting and how she handles a press room.
Read on to find out about her role as Kym in the movie, why she isn’t entirely satisfied with her previous acting roles, and what she’s doing next.
You were in Venice and now in Toronto, and the film was well received in both places. How was that?
I am not going to lie: two standing ovations at the world’s premier film festivals makes for a very good week [laughs]. I think, I need to stop celebrating with champagne now.
Was this the kind of role you’d been waiting on for awhile?
Meryl Streep said best––as she often does say best––that you do the best work you can from the material that is available. I am so thrilled that this part came my way. This is the kind of role, the reason why I became an actress. And of course I’ve loved the rest of my career and had so much fun working on these roles and had fun exploring other people, but this one, it is not “Oh, it is the one I have been waiting for,” but it is why I became an actor.
And you don’t get roles like this every single time and I don’t expect to get a role like this every single time, but I am happy that I did get it and that apparently I executed it well. And quite frankly, I am proud of my own work in this and I have never ever ever been able to say that to myself about another performance.
Are you happy with your performance in this?
I hope it doesn’t make me sound conceited: I am really satisfied. I worked really hard on this character for a year and to have my intentions represented on screen exactly as I imagined them is overwhelming and I have never had that before.
It is very heart wrenching to watch the movie and the performance, how much did you have to go into those emotions and how you were able really to let yourself be happy?
It is a funny thing, and I am going to sound like such a pretentious actor and please excuse me, but from the second I read the script, it is like Kym and I were locked together and I just knew who she was and how she felt. I didn’t have to torture myself to feel a certain way. It wasn’t about me, it was never about me, it was always about her and she made sense to me.
I think, the hardest thing is sometimes when the script tells you to cry and you don’t feel like the character or feel a certain way and you don’t feel like the character’s earned it.
Kym’s earned everything that she has and the good and the bad and the extremely extremely painful. And so, it always made sense to me that and she is a dramatic person. She is an emotional person. She is just an incredibly well constructed character and as a result, she never felt like work. And like I said, I never had to beat myself up in order to get her to cry.
Kym seems so far away from the Anne Hathaway we’ve come to know…
I know, doesn’t she?
Is she that far away from where you are?
She is closer than anybody’s ever thought. [laughter]
Is this the first time in your life where you’re not trying to please other people?
Yeah, that is exactly where I am at in my life right now [laughs] actually.
What changed that?
I am sure it has a lot to do with my age and you know, just kind of… But, I have really… For the first time in my life, I am really comfortable in my skin. I think, I was tortured by the… Oh, my god I have just said that and bloggers are going to be like “Anne Hathaway was tortured…”
[laughter]
So, I’d like to retract that word and just say I was preoccupied with the fact that I was an actress, but I couldn’t call myself an actress to myself. I hadn’t done anything yet to earn that. And there I was out promoting it and people were complimenting me and I couldn’t accept it because it was just not true to me and I’ve all of a sudden now I have done work that I am proud off. I have done something that I believe in. I have done something that I worked really hard at and feel fulfilled by and feel satisfied by.
And there was a clear delineation in my life before I did this movie and afterwards and I felt like after I made it, I could relax because I am just like “at last, I did it, I did it, I did it,” who knows if I will ever be able to do it again and I am sure I will get freaked out about something else, but for this exact moment, I am really really happy.
And also about Kym as a character, Kym doesn’t have a filter, which I do, I was born with one, so I am never going to be able to change that.
But, Kym is really comfortable going out there and saying, “Look I am true to myself, so if you like me or you don’t, that’s your problem, but I am just me.” And I have never given myself the freedom to do that and I am kind of exploring that for the first time in my life and I am really liking it.
[laughter]
Did you try to remove that filter?
Well, yes, but I think that has more to do with me being an American than a celebrity. [laughter. boy she laughs a lot.]
Was it hard for you to in a case like The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep got most of the limelight?
No, I’m a team player, what’s good for the movie is good for me and that is my attitude about it. I have long believed and still believe that you cannot cheat your character for the sake of giving a showy performance, which means if the emotional life in your character isn’t there to give a showy performance, you don’t just give one because that’s not going to work for the film. And even if that means sacrificing what you were just talking about, that’s what you have to do, that’s what you sign up for, that’s what it means to tell a story.
Do you mean that you weren’t satisfied with your previous films?
There were things I would have liked to change about all my performances, but Jonathan Demme managed to get something out of me that I was really proud of and wouldn’t change a thing about.
The character Kym smokes very heavily in the film. Did you take up smoking for it, or do you have a smoking habit yourself?
Reformed, reformed, reformed. I will say, it was tough to leave Kym behind when the movie was done and that was a habit that was tough to leave behind.
Where do you go from here?
I turned around and I made the same movie 180 degrees in the opposite direction. I made a movie called Bride Wars with Kate Hudson, which is going to be like the glossiest, most commercial thing you’ve ever seen.
But, it’s fun. I thought it was fun, because in it, I play one of the superlikable girls that I play, but she’s having an identity crisis about being a superlikable girl. [laughs] So, I thought it was kind of interesting.
Are you campaigning this fall? Are you going on the campaign trail?
I am, yeah. I’m going go with the Creative Coalition and then let them use me as they see fit.
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