Anne Hathaway covers the latest issue of V Magazine, all to promote The Idea of You, the romance where her single-mother character is pursued by a Harry Styles-type rock star. Her character has bangs (sob) but otherwise, it seems like it was a fun role for Anne and she’s enjoying the promotion as well. She chatted with V about fashion, a potential Princess Diaries trilogy, and what it was like to work with her Idea of You costar Nicholas Galitzine. Some highlights:
She doesn’t truly identify as a fashion person. “I really don’t. I view myself more as a guest. I think it’d be an insult to someone whose education revolved around it, whose life revolves around it, who has done a full fashion cycle in multiple cities as opposed to just, like, getting invited to a show and an after-party. I think there’s a degree of stamina and schlepping involved in being a proper fashion person. I’m very grateful to be a guest. I mean, I’ve studied it, but it’s informal. I’m aware of the history. I love fashion photography. And I’ve been welcomed for a long time and been shown great kindness and generosity by people whose lives it is. But I’m an actress first.”
The Idea of You: “It is this story about a single mother fully embracing her sexuality at a time in her life and a woman’s life where, traditionally, we begin to be erased.”
Her 20-something costar Nicholas Galitzine: “We had met a number of young men already, but I remember laughing when Nick walked in because he was so ridiculously perfect for the part. I just thought, he is it. Is he gonna be able to read the lines? Read the lines, great. Okay, can you sing? Oh, my God, he can sing. Wait and he can play the guitar? Okay, and he’s just fun to be around. He’s just charming. Like, he’s just charmed this entire room.”
The old-school chemistry tests. “Back in the 2000s—and this did happen to me—it was considered normal to ask an actor to make out with other actors to test for chemistry. Which is actually the worst way to do it. I was told, ‘We have ten guys coming today and you’re cast. Aren’t you excited to make out with all of them?’ And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ because I wasn’t excited. I thought it sounded gross. And I was so young and terribly aware how easy it was to lose everything by being labeled ‘difficult,’ so I just pretended I was excited and got on with it. It wasn’t a power play, no one was trying to be awful or hurt me. It was just a very different time and now we know better.”
How they did new chemistry tests: “We asked each of the actors coming in to choose a song that they felt their character would love, that they would put on to get my character to dance, and then we’d do a short little improv. I was sitting in a chair like we had come in from dinner or a walk or something, we pressed play, and we just started dancing together.” What band did Nick pick? “The Alabama Shakes. And it was just easy. I heard [the lead singer of Alabama Shake’s] Brittany’s voice and I just started smiling. And he saw me smile, so he relaxed, and we just started dancing. Nobody was showing off. Nobody was trying to get the gig. We were just in a space dancing. I looked over and Michael Showalter, our director, was beaming. Spark!”
A third installment of The Princess Diaries series? “We’re in a good place. That’s all I can say. There’s nothing to announce yet. But we’re in a good place.” What about the Devil Wears Prada 2? “Probably not. We all love each other and if somebody could come up with a way to do it, I think we’d all be crazy not to. But there’s a huge difference in the world now with technology, and one of the things about that particular story is it was about producing a physical object. Now with so much being digital, it would just be very different. Maybe me, Stanley, Emily, Meryl, Dave Frankel, Patricia Field…we should just all do something else together. That’d be fun.”
She loves her character in The Idea of You: “One of the points that the movie makes is something that really resonates with me: We have limited ideas of appropriate ways for women to be happy. And we react harshly and punitively when we feel that women have stepped outside those boundaries. I think that needs to stop, so I made a movie about it. I loved getting to play a character who has to come up against what the world thinks about her, how they’ve judged her, and decides to choose her own happiness. There’s this line where her ex-husband who left her, who is clearly threatened by her new choices, tries to shame her by saying: ‘Do you even know what people are saying about you?’ And you know what her response is? ‘No.’ Period. I just loved that.”
I liked that last point so much because it’s soooo true. “We have limited ideas of appropriate ways for women to be happy.” Those boundaries are enforced harshly, although it does feel like those boundaries change and widen over time. That being said, the whole premise of the movie feels so unlikely because those boundaries are “enforced” by women and men. In this situation, it wouldn’t just be the case where the “older woman” was being criticized and mocked – the younger guy would be getting tons of sh-t as well.
It’s a “His” & Hers” moment for our V148 Summer 2024 issue starring the one and only #AnneHathaway!
The Academy Award-winning actor and first-time V cover star poses in a gender bending story, photographed by @chriscolls and styled by Gro Curtis, in @dolcegabbana Alta Moda and… pic.twitter.com/U32dE7wPAe
— V Magazine (@vmagazine) April 22, 2024
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, V’s IG.