Anne Hathaway names the one aspect of her career she “really regrets”
Whether it be The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada or Les Misérables, Anne Hathaway has enjoyed an incredibly successful career to date. From romantic comedies to thrillers, she’s tried her hand at a myriad of genres in her time, and more often than not, it’s worked out for the better, both commercially and critically. However, like every actor of note, Hathaway also has reservations about certain aspects of her career choices, with her once revealing the one thing she “really regrets” about her time in Hollywood.
The divulgence came in 2017 when Hathaway spoke to ABC News. Reflecting on the 2011 romantic drama One Day, the actor admitted that she had difficulty trusting Danish director Lone Scherfig – a member of the Dogme 95 movement – because she was a woman. Asked to name which filming experience she learned the most from, she picked Scherfig’s film, saying: “I really regret not trusting her so easily”. Hathaway clarified that her inability to trust the director might have stemmed from “internalised misogyny”.
“I am to this day scared that the reason I didn’t trust her the way I trust some of the other directors I work with is because she’s a woman,” she said. “I hope people understand that it’s hard to admit.”
“I’m so scared that I treated her with internalised misogyny, and I’m scared that I didn’t give her everything she needed because I was resisting her on some level,” Hathaway continued. “I’m getting red talking – this feels like a confession – but it feels like something we should talk about.”
The Les Misérables star conceded that in the past, when reading scripts from new female filmmakers, she’d always focused on the negative aspects. “And when I see a first film directed by a man, I focus on what’s right with it. I focus on where he could go with the next one, and I focus on where she failed to go,” she said. “I can only acknowledge that I’ve done that, and I don’t want to do that anymore … I, before I realised this, had actively tried to work with female directors – and I still had this mindset buried in there somewhere.”
Hathaway concluded her personal exorcism by noting that she’d never apologised to Scherfig, which she was to rectify after the interview. She said: “I’m going to call her as soon as I’m done, I hope I haven’t put her on the spot by mentioning it.”
