The one career goal Anne Hathaway has left to achieve: “It’s very much alive”
In her 24 years as a movie star, Anne Hathaway has accomplished more than most actors do in a lifetime. She has been the proud recipient of an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Primetime Emmy Award; has starred in hit movies like The Devil Wears Prada, Interstellar, Les Misérables, and Ocean’s 8, sung on several soundtracks, and served as a UN goodwill ambassador for women.
However, despite all her success and accolades, there is one thing Hathaway has never quite managed to do in her career, and she still harbours a deep, abiding ambition to get there one day. Like most Hollywood stars, Hathaway began her acting journey in high school plays before performing on stage at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Amazingly, she subsequently became the first teenager to ever be accepted into the Barrow Group Theatre Company’s acting programme.
Throughout her career as a film and television actress, Hathaway has returned to the stage periodically. She made her New York theatre debut in 2002 in a production of David Merrick’s Carnival, and followed that up with turns in The Woman in White in 2003, Children and Art in 2005, and Twelfth Night in 2009. In 2017, she made it to New York’s Carnegie Hall with The Children’s Monologues, but the logical next step of her theatre evolution remained tantalisingly out of reach.
In 2024, Hathaway confessed to V magazine that it was her “first dream” to perform on the Broadway stage, referring to the iconic string of theatres in Midtown Manhattan that, alongside London’s West End, represent the top of the mountain in terms of live theatre. Early that year, she made a cameo appearance on a Broadway stage as part of Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells’ Gutenberg! The Musical!, and that small taste of the experience only whetted her appetite to return in her own full production.
Indeed, when asked how she felt when she walked on that stage, even in such a small capacity, Hathaway grinned, “Am I gross if I say ‘home?’ Yeah, I really want that, there’s no hiding it. So many amazing, extraordinary things have happened to me, but not that one yet. It’s a goal that is very, very much alive inside of me.”
Interestingly, Hathaway’s history with Broadway could have been incredibly different had she not experienced a sliding doors moment when she was 15. She auditioned for a musical in that prestigious district, and the lead role came down to her and one other girl, who wound up being chosen for the part.
“It was the closest I’d ever gotten to being on Broadway,” Hathaway wistfully recalled to Backstage magazine in 2022. “It was for a Broadway show, and the director—who is very, very famous—said in the room a very nice thing about me.” Unfortunately, to the young girl’s devastation, they followed that nice comment with, “This is not the right part for you. Thank you for coming in.”
The shattered youngster had been dealt a huge blow, and she “cried a lot after that one.” To use an American football analogy, she felt like she’d gotten as close as she could get to her dream, but was denied “on the one-inch line.” After a period of feeling sorry for herself, though, she picked herself up, dusted herself down, and resolved to keep pursuing her dream. “That was the beginning, but I did come back,” she insisted. “That wasn’t a, ‘It was so bad that I can’t do this anymore; this life is not for me.’ No, no, no.”
Then, because life doesn’t always follow a logical path, Hathaway was cast in The Princess Diaries at only 18, and before she knew it, she was one of Hollywood’s hottest young stars. Soon, she was building a career in movies, but that Broadway ambition still lay dormant inside her, and it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to see her treading those hallowed boards one day in the near future.
