Military Movies - Military Times

Hathaway has come a long way since ‘Princess’

It’s been quite a year for Anne Hathaway.

She starred opposite Steve Carell in “Get Smart,” and is now garnering rave reviews for her career-defining turn in Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married,” in which she plays an addict out of rehab for a weekend to attend her sister’s wedding. Her personal life has also been in the news, with the arrest of former boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, on charges of fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

That’s a lot to handle, but Hathaway spoke recently about the whirlwind of a year she’s had so far.

Comment: Big year so far.

Answer: Yeah, how ’bout that?

Question: Your performance in “Rachel” lives up to advance billing.

A: It’s a strange feeling as an actress when people start to say nice things about your work. You just want to say, “Shhh, let everybody figure it out.” I thought there was something special in there, but I wasn’t sure, and I was worried if people started talking about it, it wouldn’t live up to the hype.

Q: When did you realize what a good role this was?

A: I knew it from the first sentence. Jeez, Louise. I mean, that line, “You’re going to torch the self-help library again,” wow, there was so much in that. … That’s a big ol’ piece of sirloin, and that’s the first line my character got to speak. So I was kind of in love from then.

Q: It’s a different kind of role for you.

A: I know. And to that I respond, wow, I’m 25, and I haven’t been doing this consistently for that long. I suppose it does seem like a different kind of role, but at the same time, I’ve always looked at myself as a young actress and a developing actress, and I still do. And so it’s like, of course it’s taken me a while to get to this place, to this kind of performance. But if you hadn’t seen my early work, it wouldn’t seem odd.

I think that’s one of the reasons it seems like I’ve been in more movies than I have been, because the film’s that I have been in — I mean, not all of them, some of them obviously have been abject failures — but the ones that have succeeded have kind of stayed in people’s minds.

Q: For instance, my 10-year-old daughter has seen “The Princess Diaries” maybe 100 times.

A: I mean, that’s nuts, right? I think it’s nuts. I made that movie almost 10 years ago and it’s never gone away. That’s crazy. That’s all levels of insane.

Q: But it’s not a bad thing.

A: No, no, no, far from it. It’s just not remarkable in the sense that I would like everyone to remark about it. But it’s cool.

Q: You’d been pretty tabloid-free till this summer with the arrest of your former boyfriend. Were you surprised at the media’s interest in celebrities’ personal lives?

A: But it’s not a personal life. It’s not. It’s details that people choose to report on that sometimes are true and sometimes are false and sometimes are true and reported in a false way and sometimes are false but reported in a seemingly true way. You’re just dealing with another version of reality. It’s odd — I don’t know how else to say it. But it doesn’t define me, and I would like to think that it was a moment and that moment has passed.

Q: Good time to have such a great role.

A: It is a very good time to have a breakthrough, certainly.

Q: After such a good opportunity, how do you move on without looking back?

A: I did it as quickly as possible, like pulling off a Band-Aid. I went off and I did the complete opposite of this last experience, so that I couldn’t possibly compare them — “Bride Wars,” with Kate Hudson. I mean, it’s the fluffiest, most-commercial wedding movie you could ever hope to make. And so I’m just like, “OK, that’s cool. I went off and made a wedding movie about addiction, and then I’ve gone off and made one about female friendships.”