Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress.
Hathaway was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Her father Gerald is a labor attorney, and her mother Kate (née McCauley) is a former actress. Hathaway’s maternal grandfather was WIP (AM)Philadelphia radio personality Joe McCauley. Her mother is of Irish descent, and her father has Irish, French, English, and German ancestry. She was named after Shakespeare’s wife. She is the second of three children, following brother Michael and preceding brother Thomas. When she was six, her family moved to the Short Hills area of Millburn, New Jersey, where she was raised.
At age six, when Hathaway watched her mother perform in Les Misérables as Fantine, she instantly became fascinated with the stage, but her parents were not keen on allowing her to pursue an acting career. After this, Kate quit acting to raise Hathaway and her brothers. Hathaway was raised as Roman Catholic with what she considers “really strong values” and stated that she wished to be a nun during her childhood, but acting was always a high priority for her. At age fifteen, her relationship with the Catholic Church changed after learning that her older brother, Michael, was gay. Her family left the church, converting to Episcopalianism because of its acceptance of homosexuality, but left that too. In 2009, Hathaway described her religious beliefs as “a work in progress”.
Hathaway attended Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and Wyoming Elementary School in Millburn. She graduated from Millburn High School, where she played soccer and took part in many plays, including Once Upon a Mattress, in which she portrayed Winnifred. Later, she appeared in other plays like Jane Eyre and Gigi, at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1993 and became the first teenager admitted into the Barrow Group Theater Company’s acting program.
She spent several semesters studying as an English major and political science minor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, before transferring to New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She has stated that she would have become either an English teacher or psychologist if she were not acting. Between 1998 and 1999, Hathaway sang soprano with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and in plays at Seton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange, New Jersey.
At the start of her film career, her acting style and beauty were compared to Judy Garland—whom she cites as one of her favorite actresses—and Audrey Hepburn. Three days after her performance at Carnegie Hall, Hathaway was cast in the short-lived Fox television series Get Real. Despite her early success, Hathaway suffered from depression and anxiety as a teenager; she said in 2008 she had since grown from it. She missed her first college semester for the filming of her cinematic debut The Princess Diaries (2001). She says she never regretted not finishing her degree, as she enjoyed being with others who “were trying to grow up”.
The comedy The Princess Diaries and the adventure drama The Other Side of Heaven, both 2001 Disney films, featured Hathaway in lead roles. Hathaway portrayed princesses and appeared in family-oriented films over the next three years, subsequently becoming known in mainstream media as a children’s role model. After voicing Haru Yoshioka for the English version of The Cat Returns (2002), she starred in Nicholas Nickleby (2002).
To avoid typecasting, she began taking on adult roles. She starred in the drama Havoc (2005) as a spoiled socialite, appearing nude in some of its scenes. Although the film was thematically different from her previous releases, Hathaway denied that her role was an attempt to be seen as a more mature actress, citing her belief that doing nudity in certain films is merely a part of what her chosen form of art demands of her; because of that belief she does not consider appearing nude in appropriate films to be morally objectionable.
Hathaway starred opposite Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Ang Lee’s drama Brokeback Mountain (2005). The film depicts the emotional and sexual relationship between two married men, Ennis (Ledger) and Jack (Gyllenhaal); she played Jack’s wife. Hathaway was originally sent the script with the role of Alma, Ennis’ wife, but decided to audition for Lureen once she read the screenplay. During her audition, she lied to Lee about her knowledge of horseback riding so he would cast her, but she did subsequently take lessons. Hathaway later stated that the content of the film was more important than its award count, and that making it made her more aware of the kind of stories she wanted to tell as an actress. At that point, she realized that she wanted to play roles to move audiences or otherwise entertain them so much that they forget about their own lives.
In 2006, Hathaway starred in David Frankel’s comedy The Devil Wears Prada. Based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same name, the film featured her as Andrea “Andy” Sachs, a college graduate who lands a job as co-assistant to the powerful fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly (played by Meryl Streep). To prepare for the part, Hathaway volunteered for a few weeks as an assistant at an auction house. She said that working on the film made her respect the fashion industry a great deal more than she had previously, though she admitted that her personal style was something she “still can’t get right”. She also stated that she and co-star Emily Blunt got so hungry on their weight-loss regimen for the film it made them cry. Hathaway later said she was “the ninth choice” for the role of Andy, citing this as an inspiration for people to never give up.
Her sole release of 2007 was the biographical romantic drama Becoming Jane, as the titular English author Jane Austen. A fan of Austen since she was fourteen, Hathaway prepared for the role by rereading Austen’s books and conducting historical research, such as perusing the author’s letters; she also learned sign language, calligraphy, dance choreography, and the piano. She moved to England a month before production began to improve her English accent. In October 2008, Hathaway hosted an episode of the NBC late-night sketch comedy Saturday Night Live. She also starred in Get Smart, in which she played Agent 99. Her following release was the mystery thriller Passengers. Hathaway then starred in Rachel Getting Married as Kym, a young woman who, after being released from drug rehabilitation, returns home for her sister’s wedding.
Hathaway starred in Bride Wars (2009). Hathaway voiced different characters in Family Guy in 2010 and 2011.
In 2010, Hathaway appeared as a receptionist who dates a clerk in the ensemble romantic comedy Valentine’s Day. Hathaway played the White Queen in Tim Burton’s 2010 adaptation of the fantasy novels Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass alongside Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp.
Hathaway reunited with Jake Gyllenhaal as a free-spirited artist suffering from Parkinson’s disease in Edward Zwick’s erotic romantic comedy-drama Love & Other Drugs, based on the nonfiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy. For the role, she spent time with a Parkinson’s patient to research the disease. Preparing for the film’s nude scenes, she watched the films of Kate Winslet and Penélope Cruz who, in Hathaway’s view, have done nudity with sensitivity and dignity. She believed these scenes would not discourage socially conservative people from watching the film.
In 2011, Hathaway voiced Jewel, a female Spix’s macaw from Rio de Janeiro, in the animated film Rio, Later, Hathaway starred alongside Jim Sturgess in Lone Scherfig’s One Day, based on David Nicholls’ 2009 novel of the same name. The film tells the story of two young people who meet twenty years after they shared a one-night stand together. Hathaway was clandestinely given the script, as One Day was set in the UK, and Scherfig was not looking for any American actresses for the part. After a nonproductive meeting with Scherfig, Hathaway left a list of songs for her, who after listening to them, cast the actress for the part. In an interview with Peter Travers, Hathaway said she might have inadvertently encouraged misogyny as she did not trust Scherfig as a director, which she felt was because of her gender.
In 2012, she played sly, morally ambiguous cat burglar Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s final installment in The Dark Knight trilogy. Hathaway auditioned not knowing what role she was being considered for, admitting that she had one character in mind but only learned her role after talking with Nolan for an hour. She described it as the most physically demanding role she had ever played, as she had to redouble her efforts in the gym to keep up with the requirements of the part.
Hathaway portrayed Fantine, a prostitute dying of tuberculosis, in Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables, a film adaptation of the stage musical of the same name. Footage of the actress singing “I Dreamed a Dream”, a song from the film, was shown at CinemaCon in April 2012; Hooper described her singing as “raw” and “real”. In preparation for the role, Hathaway consumed fewer than 500 calories a day to lose 25 pounds (11 kg), researched prostitution and cut her hair. To get into her character’s mental space alone during filming in London, she sent her husband back to the United States; this resulted in her becoming increasingly temperamental.
After briefly appearing in the romantic comedy Don Jon (2013), Hathaway starred in and co-produced (with her husband and others) Song One. In the drama film, she played an anthropology student who returns home to see her injured brother, Henry and soon begins a romantic relationship with his favorite musician, James Forester (played by Johnny Flynn). Her character was initially written as being a 19-year-old, but Kate Barker-Froyland, the film’s writer and director, changed the part to that of an older woman after casting Hathaway. The actress said the reason she decided to produce the film was because of its depiction of the healing power of music and second chances.
Hathaway reprised her role as Jewel in the animated film Rio 2—her third film with Jamie Foxx—which was released in 2014. Her sole live-action release of 2014 was Christopher Nolan’s epic science fiction film Interstellar. Hathaway was drawn to her character’s growth from an arrogant to a humbler person. She almost suffered from hypothermia while filming a water scene in Iceland, because the dry suit she was wearing had not been properly secured.
Hathaway began 2015 with an appearance in the first season of the musical reality show Lip Sync Battle. In the episode, she competed against her The Devil Wears Prada co-star Emily Blunt; she lip synced “Love” by Mary J. Blige and “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus. The Intern was Hathaway’s sole film release of 2015. It tells the story of Ben Whittaker (played by Robert De Niro), a seventy-year-old widower who becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site run by Hathaway’s character, Jules Ostin. Hathaway reprised the role of the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass, the 2016 sequel to Alice in Wonderland. That March, it was reported that she would reprise her role for The Princess Diaries 3; the project was shelved after the death of Garry Marshall, who was set to direct the film. Her final film of 2016 was Colossal (2016). Playing an unemployed young writer, Hathaway was the first actress to sign on at a time when the project had no financial backing. She found herself attracted to the genre-hopping nature of the script, later comparing it to Being John Malkovich (1999), one of her favorite films.
After a two-year absence from the screen, Hathaway starred as a famous actress in the all-female spin-off of the Ocean’s Eleven franchise, Ocean’s 8. Hathaway’s first two films of 2019 were the thriller Serenity and the comedy The Hustle. Hathaway next played a woman with bipolar disorder in an episode of the Amazon Prime Video romantic anthology series Modern Love. She then played the wife of Mark Ruffalo’s character in Todd Haynes’s legal drama Dark Waters, about environmental poisoning done by the chemical company DuPont.
Hathaway began the new decade with the political thriller The Last Thing He Wanted (2020), based on the book of the same name by Joan Didion. She considered herself to be an unlikely choice for the part of a headstrong journalist, as it differed from her own “puppy dog” personality. She then starred in The Witches (2020), an adaptation of the novel of the same name from director Robert Zemeckis, in which she played a powerful and evil witch. In 2021, she starred in the romantic comedy heist film, Locked Down (2021). The film is set over a few days during the first month of the pandemic and the heart of it unfolds in a townhouse on Great Portland Street in West London, where Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, as a veteran couple, hang out, thrash around, bounce off the walls, and spill their guts, all as a way of trying to avoid cracking up under the strain of forced confinement. Then she played one of the lead in Amazon Prime’s starry anthology series Solos (2021). The series allows eight performers to play in a near future with advancing technology, where they’re tasked with delivering monologues that range from decent to extremely clunky.
Hathaway will play a leading role in a film based on the Sesame Street franchise. She will also star in an adaptation of Pamela Druckerman’s book Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. In June 2020, Variety confirmed that Hathaway will star in James Gray’s multi-starrer period drama Armageddon Time. Hathaway will team up with Jessica Chastain to star in the psychological thriller Mothers’ Instinct, film is based on the novel Derrière la Haine by novelist Barbara Abel. She has also signed on to star in Apple’s scripted WeWork project titled WeCrashed opposite Jared Leto, based on the Wondery podcast of the same name and in Rebecca Miller’s romantic comedy She Came to Me alongside Tahar Rahim, Marisa Tomei, Joanna Kulig and Matthew Broderick. In June 2021, it was confirmed that Hathaway will star in Amazon Studios and Welle Entertainment’s co-production based on Robinne Lee novel The Idea Of You.
Discussing her career in 2015, Hathaway said that after her breakthrough in The Princess Diaries, she struggled to find serious roles or ones that were not about princesses. According to Judi Gugliemli of People, Hathaway used this fear of being typecast as motivation to build a versatile body of work; Gugliemli believes that her ability to extensively research her roles is the key to her success. Hathaway says she would be “lost” without acting and feels lucky to have found it as her profession. A trained stage actress, she prefers performing on stage to film roles and claims to be terrified of acting on camera.
In January 2008, she joined French luxury perfumes and cosmetics house Lancôme as the face of their fragrance Magnifique. In 2011, she became the new face of the Italian company Tod’s. She has refused to undergo Botox, saying she is comfortable in her own skin.
Hathaway has served as a long-term advocate for the Nike Foundation to raise awareness against child marriage. In July 2006, she spent a week in Nicaragua to help vaccinate children against hepatitis A. She has also traveled to other countries to heed the rights of women and girls, including Kenya and Ethiopia. In 2008, she was honored at Elle‘s Women in Hollywood tribute and won an award from the Human Rights Campaign for her philanthropy; she was also honored for her work with Step Up Women’s Network in 2008. She then teamed up in 2010 with World Bank in a two-year development program The Girl Effect whose mission focuses on helping empower girls in developing and developed nations where one-third of young women are not employed and not in school. In 2013, she provided the narration for Girl Rising, a CNN documentary film, which focused on the power of female education as it followed seven girls around the world who sought to overcome obstacles and follow their dreams.
Hathaway serves on the board of the Lollipop Theatre Network and is involved with charities Creative Coalition, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Human Rights Campaign. She is a supporter of LGBT rights and has donated money to organizations that support same-sex marriage. In 2016, Hathaway was appointed UN Women Goodwill ambassador based on her advocacy for gender equality. The following year, she spoke on International Women’s Day in favor of paid parental leave for both men and women.To promote an increased awareness of systemic sexism in the entertainment industry, Hathaway has advocated for greater professional opportunities for women and criticized Hollywood as not being a place of equality. In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time’s Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination. Hathaway has also spoken out against the issues of bullying of gay students, discrimination toward transgender children, and white supremacy.
In early 2007, Hathaway spoke of her experiences with depression during her teens, saying that she eventually overcame the disorder without medication. In 2008, she began smoking after a stressful summer and the end of her relationship with Raffaello Follieri. She has credited quitting smoking for the subsequent decline in her stress level and returned to being a vegetarian. Hathaway became a vegan in early 2012, but she quit in 2014.
Hathaway and her husband sold their wedding photo and donated its profits to same-sex marriage advocacy group Freedom to Marry. They also hosted Freedom to Marry’s National Engagement Party, an event which raised $500,000. In July 2019, Hathaway announced they were expecting their second child together, and opened up about her struggles with conception and infertility.
In a 2021 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Hathaway revealed that she goes by “Annie” in her personal life.
