Anne Hathaway recalls missing out on roles over “how toxic my identity had become online”
The backlash Anne Hathaway experienced in 2013 to her personality apparently cost her career opportunities
Aux News Anne Hathaway
Public opinion is a fickle mistress; at this point, we all near-universally agree that it was foolish to hate on Anne Hathaway simply because her theater kid energy was too strong (or, as Hathaway herself jokes, she has “the personality of a vegan”). Yet the Hathaway Hate did happen, and it affected not only the actor’s emotional wellbeing but her career as well. In a new profile for Vanity Fair, she says, “a lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online.”
Luckily, Hathaway “had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of.” The Idea Of You star doesn’t know if Nolan was aware of the hate and consciously “backing” her when he brought her on Interstellar, “but it had that effect,” she says. “And my career did not lose momentum the way it could have if he hadn’t backed me.”
Nevertheless, “Humiliation is such a rough thing to go through,” she tells the outlet. “The key is to not let it close you down. You have to stay bold, and it can be hard because you’re like, ‘If I stay safe, if I hug the middle, if I don’t draw too much attention to myself, it won’t hurt.’ But if you want to do that, don’t be an actor. You’re a tightrope walker. You’re a daredevil. You’re asking people to invest their time and their money and their attention and their care into you. So you have to give them something worth all of those things. And if it’s not costing you anything, what are you really offering?”
Hathaway has continued to be herself, which means she’s deeply sincere sometimes to the point of being corny, but The Internet likes that now! Not that she would know, because “I actually don’t have a relationship with myself online,” she reveals. Still, she has powerful advice to any young person dealing with online bullying, something she knows intimately: “I want to hug them, make them tea and tell them to live as long and as well as they can. That there is an excellent chance that the longer they live, the smaller this moment will feel. That I wish them a life a million times more fascinating than this terrible moment.”
139 Comments
Even at the time I never understood what everyone hated about her. It was all nothing but juvenile meanness and never made sense. She’s never had any scandal or anything that would indicate she was a bad person; she didn’t deserve that.
Totally mystifying to me. She was even a great Catwoman! She is plenty cool enough for me
Yeah, on top of being a decent person, as far as anyone can tell, she’s a good actor! What was there to hate?
people hate successful women who are confident
Not like that, though. Lots of famous women are confident who don’t get a months-long hate campaign about them.
Brie Larson is another good example of a woman who is by all accounts nice, and talented and gets hate for no good reason.
I wonder how related it is to both she and Hathaway joining superhero franchises. Of course Scarlett Johannsen did also and nothing happened to her. I guess it’s just the luck of the draw, and how famous you are when you first join the franchise, maybe? Scarlett was already A-list by then.
Both Anne Hathaway and Brie Larson had Oscars by the time they did a superhero movie.
Yeah but I don’t think having an Oscar translates into fame or cultural relevance necessarily, and plenty of actors were more famous than both of them when they got their Oscars.
By the time they got their oscars they were both extremely well-known actresses. Hell, Hathaway had already done two princess diaries and The Devil Wears Prada.
Okay. I don’t know what to tell you. There are tons of “confident” female actors who this doesn’t happen to, but if you’re set on believing it was Hathaway’s confidence that caused this, I obviously can’t talk you out of it and I will stop trying.
Not many. Just in recent memory it’s also happened to Margot Robbie and Jennifer Lawrence.When the internet crosses a threshold of thinking a woman is not humble enough, the backlash starts.
I remember Jennifer Lawrence, but not Robbie (not saying it didn’t happen). I just don’t think confidence is the issue. Meaning I don’t think any of these examples are more “confident” than, say, Emily Blunt or Meryl Streep, keeping it in the Devil Wears Prada family. Plus I feel like Hathaway hasn’t ever not been humble? Which is to say she’s never been considered any kind of a diva a la, Jennifer Lopez (who is one who gets a lot of hate).
Jenny from the block? Yeahh right. I remember the awkward encounter when a couple of old geezers from her “old block” keep asking “who are you?” during a tv segment.
Her rubber faced visage that emerged after the glow of youth faded?
Yeah, it was weird. Like at first, she was the actress from the princess movies I was never going to care about, then she did Havoc which I remember the backlash being that she was being a try-hard about not wanting to be stuck in Disneyesque roles by doing something “edgy” (it was a terrible movie but beyond her ability to make good). But by the time 2013 was here, she had Rachel Getting Married, Brokeback Mountain, and The Dark Knight Rises under her belt, all very good to excellent performances and not a hint of her being some kind of insufferable asshole.Maybe people just hated Les Miserables that much?
I do think a lot of it was Les Mis, which Fantine is such a small role it’s weird to blame her–there wasn’t an online hate campaign against Russell Crowe (though he was ridiculed a bit, I recall). I think the Oscars hosting didn’t help either, but I feel like it had already started by then.
Yeah, mostly because Russell Crowe can NOT sing, and yet he gets Jean Valjean? Fuck all of that. Also, Anne Hathaway was incredible – she deserved none of that vitriol.
You dumb cunt
“Russell Crowe can NOT sing, and yet he gets Jean Valjean?”uh
Didn’t the hatred pre-date Les Mis? I vaguely remember people hating Hathaway even well before the Oscars hosting gig with Franco, although that hosting gig seemed to amplify people’s dislike of her.
Does anybody come out of the Oscars hosting gig smelling like a rose? Ok, maybe Jimmy Kimmel, but, you know, he sucks anyway.
Crowe took grief for his singing, especially since he had that side-hustle band for a while so you’d think he’s have a bit of talent, but it was mostly good-natured. I think it’s right that the knocks on Hathaway as some sort of annoying try-hard started around this time but I doubt anyone could really say why.Maybe it was an early lesson in ignoring anonymous nobodies online / in social media. It’s more obvious now with the proliferation of Twitter since we’ve learned so many of these manufactured stories start with literally some guy you’ve never heard of making a super-edgy comment to get noticed.
But he was makin’ movies, makin’ songs and fightin’ ‘round the world! With his sidekick Tugger!
That boat put up with a lot.
I realise it’s outside that timeframe, but she was also brilliant in 2016’s Colossal.
That was my favorite movie that year, and yeah, she was terrific.
I was just watching “The Devil Wears Prada” last night and Hathaway is outstanding in that. She goes from “likeable newbie” to “Become what you hated most” to “Made it out the other side intact and wiser for it” in 2 hours.You absolutely hated her at the beginning of the third act and routed for her to lose, which she did. At the end you were cheering for her to be herself again. Well done by AH.
I mean les miserables was god awful ( I say this as someone who has loved the musical since I was a child) but if there was anything good about it, it was her performance. People are just assholes because she was pretty and talented and was unabashedly happy and proud. so they took her down.
my best recollection of the situation is that we woke up one day and were supposed to hate her. not sure why.
The AV Club told you to.
The weird thing to me is that if you’d told me a bunch of weirdos on social media had decided they hate Anne Hathaway, I would’ve assumed the haters were Very Online straight dudes who resented the fact that she rose to fame in films like The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada that didn’t cater to the male gaze. The fact that the haters were mostly Very Online women and gay guys was so baffling, like if those demographics suddenly decided they hated Julia Roberts.
Obviously, we’re trafficking in kind of broad stereotypes here. Most women, men, and LGBT individuals do a fine job being level-headed and civil online, and no one should be defined by the worst segments of the communities they belong to.That said, I don’t think it should be especially surprising that some subset of “Very Online women and gay guys” turned out to be weirdly catty and cruel.
“women, men, and LGBT individuals”
I had forgotten all about this misplaced hatred bullshit.
Sounds like we all did, until this.
Good job, AV Club.
I think it has much of the same quality as the hatred of Chris Pratt for . . . appearing in a lot of popular movies, and being Christian. Like, do you remember the AV Club’s response to Pratt having the lead role in the Mario movie?Some of it is a degree of overexposure. Both Pratt and Hathaway seemed to be everywhere for a while. Both also were cast in roles that, at least before the movies came out, they seemed a strange fit for. I don’t think Pratt’s name was the first on people’s minds for Mario, while Hathaway’s wheelhouse of high-strung characters seemed to be a strange choice for Catwoman. (In fact, they both wound up being good in the roles, which may be why we, the general public, are not polled for casting decisions.) And they’re beautiful, seemingly happy people, and sadly, that seems to rub some people the wrong way.
I don’t think anyone hates Chris Pratt for being Christian. It’s his particular brand of Christianity that people have a problem with. So it seems a different pedigree of bullying. But there could be something to the overexposure thing, as everyone loved Chris Pratt when he was just the guy on Parks and Rec.
Also the animal abuse and while it’s not the Christianity, it’s going to a megachurch that preaches LGBT+ people are evil and going to hell and should not have basic human rights. It’s creepy.
Nah. His association with that demography is one factor. But apparently the hatred is beyond that. Remember when Pratt posting his loves and praises to his wife and baby? The amount of vitriol thrown toward him for posting it really baffling. Look at Jezebel comments for example.
That was, if I remember, because they felt he was ignoring his other child with his first wife.
Which he didn’t. The internet mob also blame Chris Pratt for the divorce, eventhough it was Anna Farris who pulled that move out of the hat. Blindsided him.
Um. Chris Pratt is a gross jersey. The backlash is because he sucks
Da fuq’s a “gross jersey?”
Reminded me of when someone wrote “FUQ” on the mirror in the boys room in high school and a guy innocently asked “What does ‘fuke’ mean?” Pretty sure we kept saying “fuke” until well after graduation.
Yeah, it was just baffling. Especially the intensity and sheer righteousness of it without anyone being to explain why. Like it was just accepted as everyone should do it.Not the only instance of that, just these random celebrities which Online Progressives (TM) just decide are worthy of scorn for… Reasons.
Her boyfriend went to prison for defrauding people and spending the money on her, but she was never charged.
And in your opinion she should have been charged for something her boyfriend did?
Well, guess now we know “How to date Scarlett Johannsen”.
It was all nothing but juvenile meanness and never made sense.So…it was the internet?
There is a certain subculture of the Internet which intentionally conspires to attack famous women, particularly if they’re perceived as progressive, magnified by bot armies intending to fracture civil society. There’s also a cohort of weirdos that love to join pile-ons just because.
At the time of the backlash, there was this whole preocupation with being “real” and everyone thought themselves to be real and needed someone who embodied the opposite of that so that they could give legitimacy to their own realness. She was over exposed and people interpreted her energy on talk show interviews and other such things to be fake and insufferable. She was deemed fake and that’s why she was getting all that hatred.
That sounds like the most likely reason. That sounds like people. 🙁
How you can not love her when she does an awesome cover of Queen’s Somebody to Love?
I don’t remember this at all.
Maybe if she didn’t want theatre kid energy she shouldn’t have married Bill.
I seem to recall this being focused on her “theater kid energy” co-hosting the Oscars, which I remember as her valiantly doing the work of 2 people bc her co-host was seemingly high/unfunny/disengaged. Fuck James Franco.
You are correct but add in Anne Hathaway’s Oscar campaign for Les Misérables. The internet and certain “journalists” decided that she was inauthentic and annoying for wanting to win a major award. It feels very similar to how the internet has attempted to character assassinate Bradley Cooper for no reason. Leave the adorable theater kids alone!
Yeah I don’t get why people hate on actors for wanting awards. Like I guess I can see where it might seem grating (particularly if you keep up a lot with Oscar campaigning, I sure don’t) but no shit they want awards!Like yeah, I get it, Don Draper “that’s what the money’s for”.mp4, etc…. But still, it’s acknowledgment that you really killed it with a role and a lot of your respected colleagues/people you have looked up to (especially if you are indeed a theater kid), and it’s as close to “winning” as you can get for a field that’s not a sport with a real title. Who wouldn’t want that? Everyone loves an award, unless it’s a dumb ironic one like a Razzie
She was a try hard theater kid personality long before the Oscars performance.
To be sure. But the morning-after reviews of the Oscar telecast were particularly brutal to her.
That was it. Her Les Mis casting, performance and Academy lobbying was all designed to get her a statuette. Don’t hate her. Hate the star machine. Oh, and she does ooze Rich New York Girl energy. Which is what she has always been.
All I know is that when she appeared ‘drunk’ on Between Two Ferns it was energy-killing-cringe. Just painful zero self-awareness stuff. And based on the metrics (see the viewership flatline on her segment), it seems the audience agrees.
I’m just going to assume, for the sake of not bashing my head against a wall, that you aren’t saying we should hate Anne Hathaway because you found an episode of Between Two Ferns she was on “cringe.”
He didn’t we should hate her. I think it’s a good example of her vibe that can throw people off. I would say self-deprecating comedy isn’t her strong suit.
So.. have we over corrected such that we’re not allowed to public say we didn’t like Hathaway performances.
The point of the show is cringe…and also lack of self-awareness. I can’t stand it and hence have no interest in watching the clip but it kind of sounds like she nailed it.
The point of the show is for the host to make people extremely uncomfortable. It’s not for people to cringe at how awkward and unfunny the guest is being. Notice the other people in the show aren’t acting to be anything other than themselves.
I do think this is a good example of why people dislike(d) Anne Hathaway, although it doesn’t explain the disproportionate hatred for her. This is not among the most watchable of Hathaway’s performances. It’s much too much, and in line with the perception of her as an overeager theater kid that people disliked.
In real life, the phrase “all I know” is a figure of speech, but I’m willing to believe that someone online has literally only ever seen Anne Hathaway on some ancient webseries.
She’s aging poorly.
Anne Hathaway is smokin’ hot. She looks gorgeous! I would say she looks better now than when she was 25. Leave her alone.
TIL that people apparently hated Anne Hathaway online.
I was unaware this was a thing until I read a piece of Slate that tried to guilt everyone for hating Anne Hathaway. It had something to do with the patriarchy, or something.
I love that so much of media has become a pro wrestling-style exercise of creating a “story” from whole cloth, then hammering in on it until the audience assumes it’s a real thing.Wait…not “love.” The other thing.
It was very much a real thing
Hall of mirrors/Spidermen pointing at each other situation. When your job has been, for more than a decade now, amplifying whatever nonsense gets clicks on social media then every spat in an insular corner of the internet becomes some memorable occasion that ‘everyone’ knew about, participated in and remembers. It’s intellectual myopia plus delusions of grandeur from playing dress up in the fallen ideals of muckraker journalism.
The internet is an incredibly stupid place sometimes most of the time.
I bet somebody still does.
The Idea Of You star doesn’t know if Nolan was aware of the hate and consciously “backing” her when he brought her on InterstellarOr, maybe, he knew first hand what she was like because he had worked with her before.
She’s looking good for someone give hundred years old.
Until I read two lines further down, I thought, “Dark Knight Rises was one of her best roles in one of her best movies? Huh.” I forgot about Interstellar. Her Catwoman was fine, but I’d say that claim goes to Pfeiffer.
Dark Knight Rises…thanks to Viagra! That claim goes to Pfizer.
I won’t deny that Pfeiffer’s performance is superior, but my Catwoman has always been and will always be Julie Newmar.Rowr.
I’ll see your Julie Newmar and raise you Earrrrrrrrrtha Kit.
Pfeiffer is an all-timer, but I liked Hathaway’s take as well. I hope she kept the suit for special occasions.
There were many issues with TDKR, but none of them were due to Hathaway’s performance.
Two words for that: “NICE”
Wasn’t a thing at the AVC at the time. Everyone wanted to Anne Fapaway.
The AV Club is weird but weirdly pure at least compared to other parts of the internet
Was, anyway. Can you imagine this story being fed through today’s AVC snark machine?
Yeah I wouldn’t call that “pure” it was really gross and creepy
I’d put it more at the feet of Jezebel. They were super anti-AH.
You say “wanted” as if nobody wants to anymore…
Two good things about Havoc
As if Sex and The Other Drugs movie didn’t exist at that time.
If only she’d read the fap comments instead of the hate comments! She’d have been happy then!
What every woman wants to hear.
Not great but it wouldn’t stop you getting work at least.
I recall Anne Hathaway catching a lot of crap from fans of Jennifer Lawrence, who was at the height of her popularity during Hatha-hate. JLaw had a very “Cool Girl” vibe, whereas Hathaway has always given “try-hard theatre nerd.” Of course, the internet eventually came for JLaw too because that’s just how the fame cycle works.They’re both talented. I’m glad Hathaway weathered the storm and we get to see more of her now. And it’d be great to start seeing JLaw in the kind of roles she was miscast in during her early 20’s (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, Joy) but that she’s finally old enough to convincingly play.
It’s because Lawrence leaned way too hard into trying to cultivate that cool girl image, implying she was really just some schlubby dork who fell ass-backwards into an acting career through no real fault (or effort) of her own. People saw through that pretty quickly, given she’d been acting since childhood.
Speaking only for myself, I like JLaw but for quite awhile she did have this sorta “lol, Hollywood is so dumb, I don’t get it, I’m just a normal person like everyone else” vibe which… wasn’t true. She is a conventionally attractive person who had been acting since childhood and was in a number of critically acclaimed movies and blockbusters. I like her, but attempts by A-listers to appear relatable tend to backfire and I think JLaw trying to make that part of her brand ended up doing some damage when it became clear that it was a constructed image rather than something authentic.
Especially when you’re talking about someone who’s been a movie star since they were a teen. No one’s gonna buy it. She seems to have chilled a bit in that regard anyway but her shot selection hasn’t been great lately.
Totally agree
Oh yeah, the backlash against anything Anne Hathaway was VERY quick. She was gaining more and more of a sentiment that she was too calculated and inauthentic, very similar to how other Disney/Nickelodeon child stars are seen if they don’t apparently try to pivot hard into dark/edgy/”adult” content to shed that label (even though she’d done stuff like Rachael Getting Married, nobody remembered that.) So when she began her Oscar-winning speech for Les Miserables by looking at the statue and saying “it came true,” it felt like that was a tipping point.I got the reasons why it was happening, but the point where I felt like it was far stronger than I realized was when Joan Rivers was on David Letterman’s show, and when I think discussing Hollywood or the Oscars, she kind of unprovoked goes, “Anne Hathaway, ** sticks out her tongue and goes “blahhh” **and the crowd laughs. That’s it. Dave asks “Anne Hathaway?” to confirm it, she repeats the gesture, and the crowd laughs and applauds.
Hathaway dumped the husband who was a crook of some sort (convicted of some fraud) very quickly. But I am never sure the wife knows nothing, nothing, like Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes. And for a time I thought maybe it was Hathaway who introduced hubby into society, guaranteed his bona fides as it were and when he went down it reflected on her. But maybe not, because no matter what some people think gossip is not reliable.
I never understood the dislike for Hathaway. Not when history’s greatest monster Anna Kendrick roams free.
She unleashed too many a cappella groups onto the world and still hasn’t faced trial. What a shame…
And evil hairline.
Oi! You leave Anna alone! She’s adorkable!
Finally someone comes through to say what we’re all thinking.
Didn’t Anne and Emily make frozen tampon lollipops for the crew of Devil Wears Prada, then the gag misfired and Streep had to step in and show ‘em how it’s done?
The Internet was a mistake
Nah. Social Media was a mistake.
“Television was a mistake.”“Nah. Television shows were a mistake.”
“Nah. Television shows were a mistake.” “Nah. Humanity was a mistake”
The Internet existed for over a decade before social media came along. TV was created specifically for shows.
I’d argue social media began with bulletin boards and Usenet-style newsgroups, which were extant well before the internet was in many households.
Now that you mention it, Tom Verlaine was kind of an asshole.
“Now children, who can tell me what the internet was and how it almost destroyed humanity in 1997?”
Nikki Finke, when she was the head writer on Deadline.com, couldn’t stand Hathaway (and actually hated most women). Here’s this nugget where she took the defense of the most misunderstood person in the world when Hathaway got her Golden Globe.I’m so sick of Anne Hathaway’s ‘Ooh-I’m-so-insecure’ shtick. But in reality, when she co-hosted the Academy Awards with James Franco in 2011 and both bombed badly, she counted every single line to make sure she had an equal number to his. Can you blame James for mentally and physically checking out of the broadcast halfway through given her asshole-ian behavior?The issue about Hathaway came from overexposure a decade ago (which also happened to Jennifer Lawrence), her supposed shtick about being surprised for the awards she got on Les Mis (remember how people were also tired of Bradley Cooper campaigning too hard for his Bernstein biopic this year) and more generally from being a woman.
The reason there’s a bunch of men on here replying like “I don’t remember anne hathaway being hated” is because the hate was driven by women and gay guys. Straight men have always appreciated Anne, who is very attractive and appeared topless in several movies.
The reason why people starting disliking her is because she seemed so desperate for people to love her. People saw that and it turned them off.
Internet culture loves to build up young(ish) stars – especially young women – and then tear them apart for not living up to some unstated standard that they never committed to. It happened to Anne Hathaway, it happened to Jennifer Lawrence, it’s happened to plenty of other young stars in the past, and I guarantee that it will happen to some of the young stars like the cast of Euphoria who get a lot of internet adoration at the moment.
To be honest, over-eager theater kids are pretty annoying.
Vin Diesel has theater kid energy. Can I hate him?
Hathaway is another example of the internet taking something middling and choosing to declare it the worst thing of all time. Does she have some Corden-esque try-hard theater kid energy that’s a bit off-putting? Sure. But does she seem like a generally decent person? Yes. Has her film output been exceptionally shitty or exceptionally good? No – she’s made films that are both good and bad and generally acted up to the level of the films. I have no idea why people piled on her, other than the internet seems to struggle with the idea of things being just okay rather than the best/worst thing ever.
My girlfriend used to bounce around the country working various film festivals as a coordinator and Anne Hathaway is the only performer she refuses to watch in a movie. If Anne is in a movie, she won’t give it a chance. She’s got plenty of stories of Anne being an entitled asshole.
I’ve been treated poorly way way more often by film festival staff than I have been treated poorly by film celebs. Mind if I start a hate campaign against your girlfriend that’s long on hate and short on evidence?
“The public” are morons. If I was a celebrity, fuck ‘em.
Well, I’m “the public” and Anne Hathaway can fuck me. If she wants to.
She is pretty smokin’. Especially in that Catwoman suit.
At least Hathaway can genuinely act–not something I can say for other actresses who bafflingly get more screentime.
It was just women right? Don’t know of any dude that gave a shit, one way or another, other than she was hot.This is only supposed to be a minimally misogynistic take, specific to Anne Hathaway. Men are the still the worst, who unleashed infinitely worse on the internet or the world at large.
Quotes like this might bring the Hathahaters back; or create new ones.“I actually don’t have a relationship with myself online,” she reveals.”