(By Merle Ginsberg, Hollywood Reporter, January 24, 2014)
When Anne
Hathaway showed up at Sundance last week looking perfectly chic
and understated, we started to wonder if she was taking her usually girly style
in a new and more sophisticated direction, flavored with
structured menswear influences. An oversize cream Max Mara coat with an ASOS scarf was her
outerwear of choice for arrival at the Salt Lake City airport. For a Harvey Weinstein
football watching party at the film fest, she wore tattered jeans and an
oversize funky graphic print Givenchy
sweatshirt. Then there was a slouchy hunter green pantsuit paired with a black J Brand camisole.
All of those looks were for her promotional appearances on behalf
of the new indie Song
One. Another ensemble, which she wore to do interviews in the THR Sundance suite
with Facebook and American Airlines, was a Nonoo quilted oversize sweater over
a cotton pima tunic from pre-fall, all over skinny black leather pants. During
the day, she accessorized with a two-tone Marni Trunk bag and Carrera by Jimmy Choo leopard-print
shades.
From whence came the funkier side of Ms. Hathaway, we had to ask.
Sources in the know tell THR
that veteran stylist Penny
Lovell, who also works with Rose Byrne, Taylor Schilling, Bella Heathcote and Mary Elizabeth Winstead,
has been quietly pulling pieces from showrooms for Hathaway. Sundance
reportedly was the duo's first time out the gate together -- meaning that the
Oscar-winning actress has called off her long-term relationship with celebrity
stylist-turned-designer Rachel
Zoe (whose current clients include Jennifer Lawrence, Sofia Vergara, Jennifer Garner and Isla Fisher).
Lovell is best known for having a knack for taking smart risks,
like Byrne's groundbreaking white Elie
Saab jumpsuit on the SAG Awards red carpet, leading the way for
jumpsuits as eveningwear. We hope this means something new and exciting for
Oscars, where Hathaway will present on the heels of her win last year for Les Miserables. If you
recall, the normally impeccably dressed Hathaway showed up at the last minute
in a pale pink satin Prada
dress with unfortunately placed darts that became the most tweeted moment on
the Oscar 2013 red carpet. Hathaway
worked with Zoe for roughly a decade.
Anne Hathaway 'Took A Beating From The
Internet' After Oscars Win
(1 January 2014, Just
Jared)
Anne Hathaway steps out of a studio after
reportedly partaking in a singing lesson on Thursday (January 30) in Los
Angeles. The 31-year-old actress
recently opened up about keeping out of the spotlight after her Oscars win. “We had been working on the script for two
years before we actually started shooting,” Anne said to MTV about her Sundance film Song One. “All of the
elements came together in that moment. I don’t want to bring up a sore subject
or anything—I think my publicist is probably like, ‘No, no no’—but I had just
taken a little bit of a beating from the Internet,” Anne added about her
2013
Oscars win for Les Miserables
Do We Really Hate Anne Hathaway?
(By Alex Williams, New
York Times, 05 April 2013)
Will they ever
stop hating on Anne Hathaway? “There’s something about her that rubs me the
wrong way,” Alexis Rhiannon wrote in a screed against the Oscar-winning actress
in Crushable,
the celebrity blog, last fall, adding later, “I feel like she’s not a real
person.” A writer for The New
Yorker’s Culture Desk blog, Sasha Weiss, explored the question: “Why are
you so annoying?” And then there was the
contest on The San Francisco Chronicle’s Web site, which anointed her “The
Most Annoying Celebrity of 2013.” The
cyberhaters even have their own catchy name, “Hathahaters,” which James Franco
and Howard Stern dissected on Mr. Stern’s SiriusXM radio
show two weeks ago. “Everyone sort
of hates Anne Hathaway,” Mr. Stern said, speculating that it was because she
comes off as “so affected and actressy.” Mr. Franco did not strain to defend
his 2011 Academy Awards co-host. “I’m not an expert on- I guess they’re called
‘Hathahaters’- but I think that’s what maybe triggers it,” he replied cagily.
So why does the
perky and supremely talented actress inspire such froth? Ms. Hathaway could
simply be a victim of what the British call “tall poppy syndrome” — the bloom
that pokes above the others is the first to get cut. With her too-perfect
mouth, flawless skin, doe eyes and svelte figure, Ms. Hathaway is certainly one
of Hollywood’s most visible blossoms of late, particularly after scooping up a
best supporting actress Oscar and Golden Globe for her turn as
Fantine in “Les Misérables.” But in
recent months, the Hathahating has moved beyond garden-variety snarkiness- as
seen with Gwyneth Paltrow, say, or Taylor
Swift - and become
a meme with unlikely stickiness. Hathahaters have spawned a Twitter hashtag (#hathahaters),
a portentous debate
before the Academy Awards about whether Hathahatred would hurt her chances for
an Oscar, and a high-minded cultural discourse seeking to deconstruct Ms.
Hathaway’s alleged powers to annoy. (Did we mention The New Yorker — or a blog
post by Ross Douthat, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, in which
he invokes Hathahaters to illustrate a new Pew study saying that the
Twittersphere offers a skewed snapshot of public opinion?)
No one, it should
be noted, accuses her of doing anything wrong. Rather, Ms. Hathaway seems to
have become a mirror for our own inadequacies. “It’s not really Anne Hathaway I
‘hate,’ ” said Sarah Nicole Prickett, a writer for Vice and The New
Inquiry, a culture and commentary site. “It’s all the lesser, real-life Anne
Hathaways I have known — princessy, theater-schooled girls who have no game and
no sex appeal and eat raisins for dessert.” Indeed, for some nonfans, Ms. Hathaway seems
to embody the archetypal high school drama geek who cannot turn off the eager,
girlish persona, even away from the stage. “We love authenticity, that’s why we
have a billion reality shows,” said Neal Gabler, an author of several
best-selling books on Hollywood culture and history. “And here comes Anne Hathaway.
Everything she does seems managed, calculated or rehearsed. Her inauthenticity
— or the feeling of her inauthenticity — is now viral.”
Fine, write her
up for misdemeanor phoniness. But when has that ever been a crime in Hollywood?
But it does not end there. “Why Do Women
Hate Anne Hathaway (But Love Jennifer Lawrence)?” Ann Friedman asked on New
York magazine’s fashion and women’s issues blog, The
Cut. “We simply don’t find successful ‘perfect’ women all that likable,”
she wrote, adding that women prefer sassy best-friend types like Jennifer
Lawrence, with her Oscar-night podium stumbles and self-effacing jokes about
Spanx and cheese steaks. One might think
that Ms. Hathaway would have an adoring fan base in the gay community — what
with her outspoken support of gay rights, her star turns in “Brokeback
Mountain” and “The Devil Wears Prada,” her fashion sophistication, a gay
brother and her reported plans to play Judy Garland in a biopic. But gay
people, too, have failed to embrace her, according to Derek Hartley, a
talk-show host on SiriusXM’s gay issues channel, OutQ. “Anne Hathaway practically demands
that we love her,” Mr. Hartley wrote. “I’ve seen less aggressive bids for our
attention on Grindr.”
But what if the
hatred is less about Ms. Hathaway and more about how social media has amplified
the echo chamber of celebrity blogs, reducing cultural commentary to a series
of innuendos, like high school gossip. That was suggested in a recent BuzzFeed
thread on “Why
Do People Hate Anne Hathaway.” Among the piercing insights offered (“She
has a huge horse mouth”), the blog post offered this theory: “She brings people
together in their hatred.” P. M. Forni,
a founder of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, which focuses
on manners and social behavior, agrees that piling on can be fun, in a perverse
sort of way. “The sensation of belonging to a group of like-minded people
activates the pleasure centers of the brain,” Dr. Forni said. “So at a certain
point, something like what has happened to Ms. Hathaway acquired momentum, and
people were willing and eager to be part of that momentum. The psychological dynamics at work are, at
least in part, the ones at work in cyberbullying,” he added. Jack Goncalo, an associate professor of
organizational behavior at Cornell University, who studies group dynamics, goes
further and argues that the Hathahaters might not actually harbor negative
feelings about Ms. Hathaway, but are merely following a mob mentality.
Psychologists call this “informational social influence.” “ ‘If the
majority has done my thinking for me, I can move on to something else,’ ”
Dr. Goncalo said. “People don’t want to think.”
In that sense,
Hathahating echoes the emergent online sport of “hate reading” — following a
blog regularly for the express purpose of ridiculing it, or “hate watching,”
the bad-television-show analog, as chronicled by Katie J. M. Baker, in Jezebel. “It’s like we’re in middle school,” Ms. Baker
said. “The easiest way to bond is to talk smack about someone else, whether
you’re online or at a party.”
It is a safe bet
that the real-life Ms. Hathaway is not enjoying the sport. Her spokesman
declined to comment for this article, and the actress herself has steered away
from the issue, although she was quoted after the Oscars as
saying that the endless barbs about her emotional awards-show acceptance
speeches do wear on her: “But you have to remember in life that there’s a
positive to every negative, and a negative to every positive.”
Her perfect smile
notwithstanding, the cyberhating has got to take a toll. Last week, Britain’s
Daily Mail published paparazzi
shots of Ms. Hathaway, her newsboy cap pulled low, on a book-buying spree
in New York, where she snatched up titles involving balance, health and
harmony. Her karma might
be looking up. After an onslaught of nasty Twitter messages mocking Ms.
Hathaway’s emotional Academy Awards acceptance speech, for example, Lena Dunham
took a stand in support. “Ladies: Anne Hathaway is a feminist and she has
amazing teeth,” she wrote on Twitter.
“Let’s save our bad attitudes for the ones who aren’t advancing the cause.”
From Jersey Girl To L.A. Lady
(By Robert Strauss,
New York Times, 05 August 2001)
At age 19 and on the cusp of stardom, Anne Hathaway has that
just-so mix of self-confidence and self-effacement that embellishes her
girl-next-door good looks. ''A star?
said Ms. Hathaway. ''No, I don't think so. But it really is good to have an
acting career. Who could have thought it? I am, after all, a suburban Jersey
girl.'' But Ms. Hathaway -- who
graduated from Millburn High School last June -- has already put some distance
between herself and her alma mater. For now she is ensconced in Los Angeles and
sharing top billing with another former teenage actress, Julie Andrews, in
''The Princess Diaries,'' which opens nationwide this weekend.
Ms. Hathaway plays Mia Thermopolis, a run-of-the-mill San
Francisco prep school student who suddenly learns that the late father she
never knew was the prince of the Monaco-like country of Genovia and that she is
now the crown princess. The 65-year-old Ms. Andrews plays her grandmother, the
queen, and the movie also stars two other young entertainers: Heather
Matarazzo, Ms. Hathaway's best friend, and Mandy Moore, her school nemesis. The plot in this movie is not unlike Ms.
Andrews' ingenue role on Broadway in ''My Fair Lady,'' but this time Ms.
Andrews has to shape Ms. Hathaway into a proper princess. Along the way there
are crowd-waving drills, dance lessons and an ugly-duckling-to-swan makeover
that transforms Ms. Hathaway from an unkempt young woman to a radiant beauty.
The Andrews teaching magic apparently happened off-camera as
well. ''What I learned from her is
this,'' Ms. Hathaway said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. ''You are
not a star when you come in and demand things and want people to know how
special you are. The only time you become a star is when you treat everyone
alike. Being a star is acting appropriately. She is magnificent that way.'' During her years at Millburn High, Ms.
Hathaway said she was hardly a star. ''I was not in any most-popular clique,''
she said. ''I did normal things. I played soccer and studied a lot and did some
acting and had good friends. Things were just fine.'' Yet there were also differences. For one, when
she was 16, Ms. Hathaway was cast in the Fox Network program ''Get Real.'' In ''Get Real,'' Ms. Hathaway played Meghan
Green, the oldest of three children in a somewhat dysfunctional family. There
was a lot of explicit sexual content and language in the show. In the pilot,
Meghan's 16-year-old brother is found naked in bed with a girlfriend by his
mother. And one of Ms. Hathaway's lines, said about a potential home wrecker,
was, ''My God, you could hide Anne Frank in that cleavage.''
The show -- and Ms. Hathaway -- were well-received by
critics, who compared it with another critically acclaimed television show,
''My So-Called Life.'' One critic for Variety in fact compared Ms. Hathaway to
Claire Danes, the star of that seminal teen-angst show, calling her performance
''sizzling.'' Nonetheless, the show was cancelled after one season, and Ms.
Hathaway returned home to finish her senior year. ''Get Real'' was Ms. Hathaway's only on-screen
appearance before ''The Princess Diaries,'' but she was somewhat of a local
celebrity even earlier. She trained at the Paper Mill Playhouse, the 1,200-seat
state theater in Millburn, and appeared in several productions there. ''Annie always had this beautiful luminous quality
about her,'' said Robert Johanson, the artistic director of the Paper Mill.
''There are certain indescribable things that indicate star quality, and Annie
has got it. You notice it best when they are up there on stage in front of
1,200 people and it shines across the footlights.''
Ms. Hathaway said her mother, who was in a national touring
company of Les Miserables, and her father, a stagehand in college and now a
lawyer, actually tried to discourage her from acting at a young age. ''They so wanted me to have a normal life as a
kid,'' she said. ''They, of course, were right. And I, of course, wanted to be
an actress.'' Her family still prefers
normalcy, and indeed values its privacy. For instance, neither her parents nor
her two brothers consented to an interview -- or even wanted their names
mentioned in a newspaper article. In fact, Ms. Hathaway referred to her college
only as an Eastern liberal arts school, though Ms. Andrews, in the promotional
interviews for the movie, disclosed that it was Vassar College. Ms. Hathaway, who is about to enter her
sophomore year, concedes that she hopes to continue pursuing an acting career
while she majors in English and minors in women's studies. ''I didn t think all that much of it in 'Get
Real,' '' she said. ''There the actors seemed like actors and it was work. ''But doing 'The Princess Diaries' and meeting
people like Julie Andrews and, especially, Hector Elizando, I realized you
could be an actor and an advocate for things and have a full life as well,''
she said, noting that Mr. Elizando was a advocate for civil rights and other
political causes.
For now, she is enjoying the rest of the summer and getting
ready for school. ''I don't have any
projects going right now; there are some in the works, but none that are
greenlighted,'' she said, already comfortable with the Hollywood patois. She did another independent movie before ''The
Princess Diaries'' that has not yet been released called ''The Other Side of
Heaven,'' about Mormon missionaries, in which she has a small part as the wife
of a Mormon leader. As for her role in
''The Princess Diaries,'' she said she chose not to go to see movie with her
friends in Millburn. ''I think it would be kind of icky to see your own movie,
like saying, 'Wow! Aren't I great up there?' '' she said. But she said she hoped her friends noticed her
father, whose photograph was used for that of the prince, her dead father, in
the movie. It is those friends, she said, who keep her grounded. ''I want to keep my life as normal as
possible, and the way to do that is to keep close to those friends,'' said Ms.
Hathaway.
Still, for now she has given up her first sporting love,
soccer, which she played for 12 years beginning in the Millburn kiddie leagues.
She also said she hoped she could make the time to take part in her family's
traditional summer vacation in Cape May, though she is looking forward to her
first trip to Europe in the fall, where she will primarily be promoting the
movie's release. ''Other than that, I
will be glad to be in New York, where they know how to make a good bagel and
good pizza,'' she said. ''L.A. is nice for the weather, but, really, they have
got to learn to make bagels and pizza. I finally couldn't eat them and I lost
10 pounds. But I was just as happy to be back and gain it all back stuffing
pizza in my mouth.'' With a decidedly
non-princess giggle, she said: ''See, still a kid. Being from the New Jersey
suburbs, you never get too Hollywood.''
Anne
Hathaway Talks About Her Husband, Her Haters, And More
(By Glamour, 04 December 2012)
Newly married and
hearing Oscar murmurs for Les Misérables, Anne Hathaway preps for
her next role, as a face of One Billion Rising, the global movement to end
violence against women. Talking to its founder, Eve Ensler (author of
The Vagina Monologues), Hathaway, 30, opens up about her husband, her
haters, and why she wants you to just dance.
A day after Superstorm
Sandy tore through the northeastern United States, Anne Hathaway and I sat down
to talk in Glamour’s offices high above Times Square. I’ve known Anne
for years, as a friend and an actor in my plays. As New York struggled to right
itself, we talked about all the exciting things happening in Anne’s life. She
looked adorable with her pixie haircut (left over from her role as Fantine in
the new film version of Les
Misérables) and radiated love-happiness—she’d married
actor-jewelry designer Adam Shulman a few months before. And I thought,
Anne epitomizes all things rising: She’s fierce and vulnerable,
unusually beautiful, and someone you feel you’ve always known. She’s constantly
asking questions but knows her mind. And I’m thrilled that she’s representing One Billion Rising, a world action
culminating on February 14. We’re inviting one billion people—representing the
number of women on the planet who’ve been raped or beaten—to walk out of their
jobs, schools, and homes and dance. We want to shake the globe
(literally!) and announce that it’s time to end violence against women and
girls. I hope you’ll join Anne and me and dance, wherever you are.
Eve Ensler: You were
evacuated during Sandy. Can you talk about what this storm means to you?
Anne Hathaway: Eight million people across the nation are without power;
dozens of people in the New York area have lost their lives. We can’t be in
denial [about climate change] anymore. And I’m just making sure that everyone I
love is OK, and trying to offer help wherever I can.
Eve Ensler: Tell me
about One Billion Rising.
Anne Hathaway: It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that a billion
women have been raped or beaten, just the enormity of that. When I was in
college, I’d heard that one in four women would be raped, and I thought, God,
that means I must know someone who was raped. Sure enough, I found out a week
later that a friend had been. A billion is too big because one is too
big.
Eve Ensler: It seems to
me that celebrities are kind of the new ruling class—they have all the money,
all the power. What’s that like?
Anne Hathaway: You realize certain things. At this stage in my life—and
this moment will not last forever—me walking my dog is news. And because I take
very seriously the idea that I can make an impact in the world, I hold back my
voice so I can make more of an impact when I do use it. A cause like One
Billion Rising is something I want to scream about, and I want you to take that
scream seriously because I don’t fall out of nightclubs. I don’t have
photographers capture me spending untold amounts on a handbag. Of course, in
the court of celebrity, if you try to be serious, you may look like a fool. In
One Billion Rising you have activists and thinkers and “celebrities.” But I’m
an actress. The celebrity thing just happened.
Eve Ensler: We’re
calling on one billion people to rise up and dance on February 14. Why do you
dance?
Anne Hathaway: When I think back to some of the most fun nights of my
life, it was just me out dancing without a care in the world. It’s a release,
an outlet. And I’m a firm believer that we can tap into a collective energy and
consciousness; on the 14th, even if you’re in a field dancing by yourself,
you’re going to know you’re not alone. That’s something I hope we can carry
forward as we resolve to protect ourselves and our sisters.
Eve Ensler: So talk
about the specific day. Do you have a vision of where you’ll be dancing?
Anne Hathaway: I think we need to have a big party in West Hollywood,
and I’m going to get the head of every studio and talent agency to commit to
dancing, because L.A. is filled with people who are passionate about women’s
issues. And I’m psyched because Valentine’s Day has become stressful for people
and we’re giving them something positive to look forward to, a reason to be
proud of themselves. And not just women: Last night my husband and my father
both said, “Can we dance?” I was so happy! My husband’s a good dancer too.
Eve Ensler: What music
do you want to dance to?
Anne Hathaway: Right now I’m totally into David Guetta and that song
that he has with Sia, “Titanium.” I also love Rihanna’s “We Found Love.” On the
theme of girl empowerment, I think “Firework” by Katy Perry is really good.
Eve Ensler: This is Glamour’s
Self-Expression Issue. When did you feel like you began to express yourself in
a way that was authentic to you?
Anne Hathaway: I had that moment after I finished making Rachel
Getting Married. I realized that the life I’d been living [was not
authentic] and that I had to make a change. Then I found out that my trust had
been betrayed quite massively. So for me, that call came at the end of 2007.
Who was I going to be? There’s no magic bullet; there’s no pill that you take
that makes everything great and makes you happy all the time. I’m letting go of
those expectations, and that’s opening me up to moments of transcendent bliss.
But I still feel the stress over “Am I thin enough? Am I too thin? Is my
body the right shape?”
Eve Ensler: And is that
an everyday obsession?
Anne Hathaway: If I’m honest, yes. There’s an obsessive quality to it
that I thought I would’ve grown out of by now. It’s an ongoing source of shame
for me.
Eve Ensler: Because you
should somehow be different than the rest of the human race?
Anne Hathaway: I just think about the ridicule you get if you have an
off day. If people weren’t watching, I’d be so much more eccentric. I know it
makes me sound weak, but rather than make myself happy and wear the silly hat
and say, “Oh, I don’t care,” I actually really don’t feel like getting made fun
of. So I put on something boring and navy and go out and try to disappear.
Eve Ensler: And
liberation would be getting to a point where you just didn’t give a sh-t?
Anne Hathaway: That would be the technical definition of liberation,
yes.
Eve Ensler: I want to
talk about work. You played so many good girls—in The Princess Diaries
and The Devil Wears Prada. Then came the troubled lead in Rachel
Getting Married. Was that a departure for you?
Anne Hathaway: I never thought of it in terms of a dichotomy—good girl
versus bad girl—I was just trying to think of myself as a whole person. Of
course, after Princess Diaries, I was labeled a good girl, and
for the first eight years of my career I had to fight to get any other kind of
role. But I like fighting for a job, actually. Once you get it, you feel like
you’ve emerged victorious from the scrap and you’re like, “OK, this one’s mine.
Did it. Done.” And it’s not based on how many Twitter followers I have: zero.
My acting got me this role. So it feels pure to me.
Eve Ensler: Let’s talk
about married life. How is it?
Anne Hathaway: It’s wonderful. I feel like I’ve found my other half, and
I’m so excited about getting to love him for the rest of our lives.
Eve Ensler: You used to
be critical of marriage. What changed?
Anne Hathaway: Him. I would never have gotten married if it weren’t for
him. You have to want to be married to someone. You have to feel that
reciprocated. Marriage for marriage's sake doesn't make any sense to me, and I
found someone with whom I could put my money where my mouth is, I guess.
Eve Ensler: What is it
about him?
Anne Hathaway: He's a good man. He's beyond intelligent. He loves
fearlessly. His beliefs are beautiful. He's my best friend. I love him. I just feel
that I have the greatest husband in the world for me. You know, we get a lot of
pressure to define ourselves as women by how wild we are: How many guys did you
sleep with? How drunk did you get? And we all bow to that. We've all done that
walk of shame at one point or another.
Eve Ensler: I wouldn't
call it shame. I had a good time.
Anne Hathaway: Well, I was always kind of proud of myself! But there’s
not a lot of positive information out there about marriage. It’s the old ball
and chain, the seven-year itch, the divorce rate. Still, my parents have been
married for 30 years; his parents have been married for 40 years. Mine had
great moments and some really sh-tty moments. But they couldn’t have been
married to anyone else, and they make each other better.
Eve Ensler: And you gave
the money for your wedding pictures to support gay marriage. Why?
Anne Hathaway: I really didn’t want the paparazzi at my wedding, and I
thought that I’d outfoxed them. The plan was to release a photo to my fans on
Instagram. But when some paparazzi got aerial shots and I realized that they
could make money off them, I wanted to prevent that, to make the money go
somewhere else. So I released four photos, and every time they’re printed, in
perpetuity, the money goes to a corresponding charity.
Eve Ensler: Let’s talk a
bit about your hair. I’m relating because I was attached to my bob, and then
when I got cancer, all my hair went away. Since then I’ve kept it short. Was
cutting it liberating?
Anne Hathaway: I was faux Zen about it. I’d resolved to cut my hair for Les
Mis and to do it on-screen to make it feel real. And then the morning came,
and I was shaking like a leaf. I almost couldn’t do my job. When it was over, I
went to the darkest corner of my trailer and I looked in the mirror, and I saw
my little brother! But eventually I felt like the coolest girl in the world.
Eve Ensler: Has it
changed how people act toward you?
Anne Hathaway: People are warmer to me. Also, I’m a fairly shy person,
and [in the past] on days when I didn’t want to deal with the world, I’d wear a
hat and pull my hair around me and hide. I can’t do that now. I have to be me
all the time. And it’s changed my habits, because if I was having a bad skin
day, I could have a good hair day. Now I have no hair, so I have to take better
care of myself because I’m all face!
Eve Ensler: Did it help
with the role of Fantine in Les Mis?
Anne Hathaway: It helped. I also lost 25 pounds for the role. It was
visceral and painful and beautiful to play a woman who sacrificed so much for
her child.
Jenny
Lewis, Anne Hathaway Embrace Masculinity In 'Just One Of The Guys' Video
(By Colin Joyce, Spin, 15 July 2014)
Jenny Lewis first
shared "Just
One of the Guys," her rambling single about the perils of aging, about
a month ago and as we get closer to the release of her third solo LP The
Voyager, she's released a star-studded clip for that cut that manages
to take the subject a little more lightly.
Casting Academy Award-winner Anne Hathaway, Kristen Stewart, and Brie Larson as
her barefooted backing band, the Lewis-directed clip runs through a
straight-faced performance of the easygoing track. Things get a little more
silly when the band takes the title of the song literally and tries on scuzzy
facial hair and monochromatic tracksuits.
Kiss
& Make Up With Anne Hathaway: We Dare You
(By Laura Brown , Harpers Bazaar, 09 Oct 2014)
We've all
done it. Watched an awards show—red carpet, speeches, audience reactions—and
judged, and judged, and judged. And it's fun, right? Sitting on the couch,
captivated by our own cleverness. Occasionally someone comes up with a catchy
term, like Brangelina, or Robsten (circa 2010). Or Hathahater. It just trips
off the tongue, doesn't it? You could practically trademark it. The problem is, there's an actual person,
Anne Hathaway, at whom this brutally jaunty phrase is directed. A woman who is
sincere to a fault, as earnest as quinoa. A woman who is warm and funny, who
has a laugh as big as her personality. Hathaway somehow attracted this
"hate" during the 2013 awards season (when she won the Oscar for Best
Supporting Actress, for her portrayal of Fantine in Les Misérables)
through her perceived inauthenticity, her very actress-ness.
Almost two
years later, Hathaway is the first to admit that public speaking isn't her
strength. "I really struggle with it—it makes me incredibly anxious,"
she says, scooping up some eggs and sausage (no more veganism, but more on that
later) at New York's Greenwich Hotel. She also enjoys a heavy-handed metaphor.
"I'm really good at those in my acting," she adds wryly, "and in
my life." One thing Hathaway's not
into, however: a pity party. It's rare that an actress will admit an image
problem to her publicist, let alone the general public. Cut to a conference
room at Bazaar this past summer, where the legendary art
director George Lois collaborated with Hathaway on the concept for this cover
story. "So some people don't like you, right?" Lois asks.
"Yep," she replies.
So here we
are, kissing and making up. "What are we supposed to do—pretend like it
didn't happen?" Hathaway asks. It happened all right, a steady lava of
invective that began after her Golden Globes acceptance speech and continued
for six weeks, all the way to the Oscars, with "Hathahater" echoing
around social media for a year after that. "People treated me a certain
way," she says. "But I've grown from it. This whole thing has made me
a way more compassionate and loving person. And I don't feel sorry for
myself." As she was preparing for
the Golden Globes, Hathaway had just come off a wave of press that focused on
her losing weight and shaving her head to play Fantine. "I damaged my
health during Les Mis, which I didn't want to mention in case
it seemed like I was courting sympathy," she says. She was exhausted,
flu-ridden, and frustrated about the lack of interest in the character and in
the issue of sexual slavery.
So when Hathaway won the award for Best Supporting
Actress, she was "weirdly presentational. One of the things I've been
accused of is being inauthentic. And they were right—but not for the reason
they thought. "I couldn't tie this
moment to what I really wanted to say," she continues. "And that's on
me, because Lupita did it," she observes of Lupita N'yongo's graceful
speech on winning Best Supporting Actress earlier this year for 12
Years a Slave. Hathaway "fumbled through the end," got
offstage, and realized that she'd forgotten to thank her manager of 15 years,
who was battling cancer. "One of my most regretted life moments," she
says. When Les Misérables won for Best Musical or Comedy,
Hathaway asked the film's producer Eric Fellner if she could say something
else. "While everyone was still getting onstage, I spoke. I should have
gone after everyone else. I own that; it was rude. People saw that as grabby, I
guess. I don't know."
The next
day, Hathaway had some friends over to brainstorm a Funny or Die video
about celebrity pregnancy rumors, "like, could we get Jen Aniston to talk
about how long she's actually been gestating, according to the tabloids."
While Googling her own pregnancy rumors, it popped up in an article asking,
"Why does everyone hate Anne Hathaway?" Hathaway had also just turned 30 and gotten
married, to Adam Shulman, two life-altering moments that got mixed up in a
roiling pot of bad PR. "I was in crisis," she says. "Now I'd be
fine. I really would be. I'd let it roll off my back, but at the time I was
still partly Fantine. I was still identifying with being a victim." Victim or no, it sucked. Abuse was thrown at
Hathaway as regularly as borrowed jewels.
And on top of that, there was
Dressgate. For the Oscars, "I found a dress, like a month before,"
she explains. "It was the most beautiful, reflective, shimmery
dress—rainbows were going to dance off me." However, the day before the
ceremony, Hathaway was called by a tearful stylist's assistant saying that the
dress had already been worn. So she regrouped, choosing a gown by Valentino.
"I love the house, and he's my buddy," she says of the famed
designer, with whom she has been friends for years. "One of my favorite
people in the entire world. It all made sense." But that night, at Oscar
rehearsals, her Les Misérables castmate Amanda Seyfried showed
Hathaway her Alexander McQueen dress. "And it's a lilac version of my
dress. Two completely different designers." At 10 o'clock the night before
the Oscars, "I didn't have a friggin' dress, which I normally wouldn't
care about …" Long pause. "But I really needed a dress, and everybody
hates me, and I just really needed a dress."
On the
morning of the Oscars, a pale pink satin Prada gown arrived at Hathaway's
house. "I was like, 'Wow! I can do this. It's beautiful. It's appropriate.
It's modern. It's minimal.' "Minimalism needs tailoring, and tailoring
took time Hathaway didn't have. " I
look in the mirror, turn to Adam, and say, 'It looks like my nipples are hard.'
He says, 'You look beautiful. Your nipples look pointy. The red carpet's about
to close. We gotta go.' "
Anyway, yes,
"it came true." Hathaway won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress,
for a performance that was a true feat of commitment and physical extremes. And
she lost, for committing the crime of public earnestness. After winning an Oscar, they say that a
girl's phone rings off the hook. For Hathaway, it was the opposite. "I had
directors say to me, 'I think you're great. You're perfect for this role, but I
don't know how audiences will accept you because of all this stuff, this
baggage,' "she recalls. Then Christopher Nolan called. Hathaway had last
worked with Nolan on The Dark Knight Rises, in which she
played Catwoman. He wanted to take her into space. "Once it was announced
that I was doing Interstellar," she remembers,
"thankfully the phone started ringing again."
In Interstellar, out
this month, Hathaway plays an astronaut who ventures into space alongside
Matthew McConaughey to save an endangered Earth. "She's very serious, very
prickly," she says. Very non-Hathaway, and, at the time, very necessary.
"I watched my first scene the other day and I was like, 'Oh, my God!
Chris, I'm such a bitch!' And he said [she puts on a droll British accent],
'Yeah, but you grow quite fond of her.'"
The shoot entailed several weeks in Iceland, with Hathaway spending most
of her days in a 40-pound space suit. That's where she bid veganism adieu.
"I just didn't feel good or healthy," she says, "not
strong." Cut to a ReykjavÃk restaurant and an adventurous costar who said
that they should try everything: She caved with a fresh piece of
fish—"from a stream I could see from where I was sitting." The next
day she "just felt better." So now, when she needs chicken soup for
the soul, she'll have chicken soup. More
recently Hathaway has been back in New York, shooting The Intern with
Robert De Niro (he's the intern), and contemplating what daring means to her.
"It's easier to think about the way I'm least daring. When I meet people
for the first time, I'm friendly but shy. I'm much less outwardly nervous than
I used to be, but I still get anxious sometimes." What else? She looks
down at her clear brogues. "I'm not very daring in my street style,
usually because there's a photographer around!" Today she's wearing her
"favorite shirt in the world," an Iro tank that reads, NO BAD VIBES.
"I am getting more daring now—I'll wear my mom jeans in public that
haven't been tailored 'just so' yet, just because they feel good. For a long
time I was afraid of the harsh things people would say about me, but I might as
well be happy."
One of the
ways Hathaway is daring is with the menfolk. "I have no problem making the
first move when I see a guy I like," she announces. Like with Shulman, her
husband of two years. "I was in L.A. when I met him. I was told he had a
girlfriend, and I backed off because I'm not that girl. Then when I found out
six weeks later that he didn't have a girlfriend, I was like, 'We should throw
a party. We should invite Adam.'" And
the rest is history." From the very
first second we knew it was a very powerful and exciting connection we
had," she says. "And it just gets better." Shulman is widely
acknowledged to be one of the nicest chaps around. "There's no pushing him
around," she adds, "but he's so gentle and present."
Hathaway's
other daring move: her career path. "Even though I've had great success,
touch wood, it hasn't been easy. A lot of people have told me, 'You're not this
and so can't play that,' and I can't tell you the amount of times I've been
told I'm not sexy. I just go: 'I'm a lot of things. Just because I don't wear
my sexiness overtly doesn't mean that I can't become that girl for a role.
That's what I do; I become things. Use your imagination, buddy.' So in terms of
not listening to what other people told me about who I was as an actress and
then really pursuing it, I think I've been daring in that way." Hathaway tips a daring hat to, number one,
Tilda Swinton. "Tilda is it, but she's so cool about it. She's so cool,
she'd be like, 'Oh, it's not daring. I just did it.' Hmm, Jonathan
Demme"—who directed Hathaway to her first Oscar nomination, for Rachel
Getting Married—"he's still my mentor and hero. And Matthew
McConaughey is the most daring man I know. He never judged himself along the
way, and it's all come together for him so wholly and deeply. He is totally
himself."
When it
comes to style, "Leandra Medine from [the blog] Man Repeller. I feel
empowered by her. Not just her humor; she reminds me of Diana Vreeland. She
wants girls to dress for themselves, be goofy, awesome girls. I have a
Pinterest board, which is called Closet Crush, and it's just all her and Jane
Birkin and a little Sophia Amoruso because I think she's fabulous too." Ask Hathaway about her most daring outfit and
the answer is swift: "I fucking think that pink Oscar dress!" She
laughs. "Now that you know the backstory, that was by far in a way the
most daring dress I have ever worn. It maybe didn't look it, but that was
it." Now that dress—and everything
that came with it—is on the shelf. After The Intern, Hathaway
is heading to London to reprise her role as the White Queen, in the sequel
to Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass. And after
that, a long break, some work with an initiative called the Girl Effect, and
"being home. I don't want to hunt down jobs right now. I want to take it
easy and explore other things," she says, smiling. "Other aspects of
myself."
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/anne-hathaway-interview-1114
Hathaway
Is Fighting An Impossible Battle Against Haters. It’s Not Worth Her Time.
(By Emily Yahr, Washington Post, 07
November 2014)
Oh, the case
of poor Anne Hathaway. The Oscar-winning actress has received an avalanche of bad
press over the last couple of years for that most polarizing kind of
offense: Being herself. She’s the kind
of celebrity that inexplicably bugs people. She has “too perfect” of an image;
a sunny personality that must be fake; a tendency to take herself very
seriously. Things really heated up during the 2013 awards season when Hathaway
took home many well-earned trophies for her role in “Les
Miserables.” But to many, she came off as smug and self-important
through the entire process. So despite winning awards, her reputation ended up
being greatly damaged instead of enhanced.
Now,
Hathaway’s back in the news as she makes the press rounds for the much-anticipated
Christopher Nolan film, “Interstellar,” co-starring Matthew McConaughey and
Jessica Chastain. In the process, she’s addressed and defended her image,
talking candidly about how people’s cruel comments have affected her
self-esteem. It’s easy to feel sympathetic, but also tough to watch because
she’s fighting a losing battle: When it comes to public perception of
celebrities, it is extraordinarily difficult to change people’s minds. In a cover
story for Harper’s Bazaar, Hathaway took a defensive tactic, running down
all of the moments people didn’t like. Viewers thought she was being
“inauthentic” during her grandiose acceptance speech for Best Actress at the
2013 Golden Globes; Hathaway acknowledges the speech was awkward but only
because “I couldn’t tie this moment to what I really wanted to say.”
People also
felt it was tacky when on the same night as the entire “Les Mis” cast
accepted the Best Musical award, Hathaway grabbed the microphone first to thank
one additional person; turns out, that person was her manager of 15 years who
was fighting cancer. Hathaway also
defended her Oscar night decision to switch to a Prada gown, which caused a
minor controversy when she backed out of wearing a dress by Valentino, a close
friend. (She found out last minute that co-star Amanda Seyfried would be
wearing a similar gown.) To the people
that already don’t like Hathaway, her excuses still might not be enough. In the
article she talks about stumbling across a story online titled
something like “Why does everyone hate Anne Hathaway?” She told
Harper’s that finding that story felt like being “Punched in the
gut…Shocked and slapped and embarrassed. Even now I can feel the shame.”
Hathaway added that her reputation started to cost her roles in movies since
directors didn’t like her public image.
Beyond how
her reputation affected her professional life, Hathaway expanded on the
emotional consequences Thursday in an interview on Ellen
DeGeneres’s talk show. DeGeneres asked how Hathaway deals with all the
criticism, which amounts to “cyber-bullying.”
Hathaway paused for a long time before answering. “Well, I listened at
first. And I couldn’t help it, you know? You try to shut it off and I couldn’t.
And then I realized that why I couldn’t was I had not learned to love myself
yet,” she explained. “I hadn’t gotten there. And if you don’t love yourself
when someone else says horrible things to you, part of you is always going to
believe them.”
She
continued, saying she just wanted to figure out who she was and not feel
dependent on what other people thought. “And it’s been a really cool great
journey,” she explained. “I feel like I’ve arrived in a place where, you know,
maybe not every minute of every day, but way more than I used to, I have a
tremendous about love and compassion for everyone else. And best of all I have
it for myself, which I never enjoyed before.”
The audience burst into loud applause, and DeGeneres commended her
attitude as well. If only it were that
simple. While it’s a great answer and she sounds genuine, Hathaway shouldn’t
bother addressing the haters with such a calm, mature attitude. Being
reasonable is ultimately useless. The viewing public is strange —
generally, the greater online audience tends to decide that they’re going to
dislike someone until they’re good and ready to stop.
Also,
Hathaway has already found the most valuable way to get back on people’s good
side: Focus on what she’s undeniably good at, which is acting. She told
Harper’s she started getting back in Hollywood’s good graces once Nolan
cast her in “Interstellar,” which shows that the best way to shut everyone
up is to prove it it doesn’t really matter what snarky Twitter users think —
she’s still going to get roles because she’s talented.
Hopefully
after this press tour, Hathaway will make these self-defense explanations
a thing of the past. Because if there’s one thing everyone has learned, trying
to convince angry Internet commenters they’re wrong is just a losing battle.
