This is the debut of The Interview, The New York Times’s new weekly series, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people. Each week, David Marchese or Lulu Garcia-Navarro will speak with notable figures in the worlds of culture, politics, business, sports, wellness and beyond. Like the Magazine’s former Talk column, the conversations will appear online and in print, but now you can also listen to them in our new weekly podcast, “The Interview,” which is available wherever you get your podcasts. Below, you’ll find David’s first interview with the actress Anne Hathaway; Lulu’s first interview, with the Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, is here.
On one level, Anne Hathaway’s new movie, “The Idea of You,” which arrives on Prime Video on May 2 and is directed by Michael Showalter, couldn’t be more straightforward. It’s an adaptation of Robinne Lee’s hit romance novel about Solène, a divorced 40-year-old mom played by Hathaway, who winds up in a relationship with a much younger man — a singer in a boy band, played by Nicholas Galitzine. Warmhearted and with unabashed mainstream appeal, the film is a return for the New Jersey-raised actress, who has fruitfully spent much of her time lately playing thornier characters in indie films, to the kinds of charming fish-out-of-water tales that first helped bring her to stardom, like “The Princess Diaries” and “The Devil Wears Prada.” This time, though, instead of being the plucky ingénue thrust into a glamorous, high-pressure situation, Hathaway is playing a character who’s coming into a new world a little less starry-eyed, and with a firmer sense of self.
But “The Idea of You” also works on another, more complicated, even self-referential level. It’s a movie about a woman pushing against societal expectations and getting a lot of grief for it, which is something Hathaway, 41, knows about. More than a decade ago, around the time she won an Academy Award for her work in “Les Misérables,” the online commentariat turned on Hathaway for … who knows, exactly? Some strange groupthink kicked in that caused people to pile on her for seeming like an inauthentic striver — or something. Other than as a case study in the inexplicable and random cruelty of the internet, the whole phenomenon, described at the time as Hathahate, makes even less sense now than it did then.
Since that time, Hathaway told me when we talked twice last month, she has been learning to let go of other people’s opinions and expectations of her as an actress, a celebrity and a human being. This has made her work even more compelling to watch and made her more guarded as a public figure. “I really like expressing myself through my work,” says Hathaway, who after so many years and so many great performances is still figuring out the best way to play the puzzling real-life part of a famous actress.
There are a bunch of things that are intriguing to me about the new movie. One of them is that there are a few of what I took to be Anne Hathaway psychological Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the film. I’ll get to those, but first: You haven’t done a romance in a while. Can you talk to me about why you wanted to do “The Idea of You”? It’s such a softball question, and I can feel my brain complicating it.
Go as complicated as you can. I still find it so much more natural to express my thoughts and feelings through characters and through the story. So a part of me wants to be like: Just see the movie. That’s why I wanted to make it. But I should probably be able to describe it. So, this is a movie about a woman healing her heart after a massive trust trauma, and it says that a bloom can happen in a person’s life at any stage. I found myself almost possessed with the need to explore what those two things meant and looked like.
I’m curious about the nature of that possession. Was it abstract, or did it connect to you in a direct way? Oh, it was completely direct. My character, Solène, might not seem like the most complicated character I’ve ever played. There’s no accent, there’s no particular gait — I love a character’s gait. But she felt familiar. I recognized aspects of myself in her. I recognized aspects of friends or women I admire. She had a richness to her, combined with this idea that early in her life she had been a people pleaser. I was excited by that idea of somebody at a place in their life where they’ve grown out of that phase.
I’m glad you brought up that people-pleaser line. That was one of the Easter eggs: “A people pleaser from New Jersey.” Yes.
But before I get into that, my vote for best Anne Hathaway character gait in a movie: “The Dark Knight Rises.” So much swagger! I worked with a choreographer for three weeks to find that swagger.
Really? Yes, I did. Because — oh, this is going to sound like a weird sentence — I wasn’t connected enough to my hips. I kept imagining a cat’s movement and the way it’s fluid and swishy but also strong and purposeful, and they helped me find my hips.
You need to introduce me to that choreographer, because not being connected enough to my hips describes most of my life problems. We are going to follow up, because I have so many thoughts! I didn’t feel connected to my body early in my life. It was this weird thing.
Why weren’t you connected to your body? That’s a great question. I mean, it would take me 41 years to answer that. It’s so many things, but I think it’s just assumed that we have a relationship with our body. Like you: Something you know about yourself is that you do not have a relationship with your hips.
Not a good one. But if somebody said, Here’s a path for you to have one, what would you do?
Oh, boy. I don’t know how to answer that. Let’s move on. Sure. Where are we going? We’re going to the knees or the torso?
I want to go back to the people-pleaser line. I interpreted the inclusion of the line “a people pleaser from New Jersey” as pretty intentional. Can you talk to me about why that line is in there? Well, she had to be from somewhere, and yeah, it might have been me who suggested that line. Maybe. Possibly.
Am I wrong in interpreting that line as self-referential? You are a people pleaser from New Jersey, right? I think I’m a former people pleaser from New Jersey. So much of the reason I was drawn to acting is that it was an outlet for expression that I could not find on my own. And in the space between feeling so connected when I was acting and so lost when I wasn’t, you try to make your way, and one of the ways that you make your way is, “Oh, if I do this, that will make someone else happy, and maybe that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.” It takes a long time to go, “That doesn’t really matter if you don’t know who you are.” Unless you just want an identity that’s all about pleasing people. Which I suppose is perfectly valid. But I’m not that nice.
It was interesting for me to revisit your work and see what I took to be — and I don’t mean this in a condescending way — an eager-beaver quality. I’m thinking of “The Devil Wears Prada” or “The Princess Diaries.” I think your character in “Valentine’s Day” had that, and in a slightly spikier way maybe “The Intern.” Was that quality something you consciously tried to change? I was not aware of it until this conversation. But I think there’s a thread that runs through those characters: someone trying to do something that they might not be comfortable with but think is the right thing to do. The thing I was interested in about Solène was this idea that, turning 40 and knowing who she was in a professional sense, knowing who she is as a mother, she had not necessarily given herself full freight to explore aspects of herself as a person.
Forty years old is a real milestone for people. But there’s also something weird about our cultural fixation on the arbitrary age of 40. I’m curious how you think about middle age. I don’t take it that seriously. There are so many other things I identify as milestones. I don’t normally talk about it, but I am over five years sober. That feels like a milestone to me. Forty feels like a gift. The fact of the matter is I hesitate at calling things “middle age” simply because I can be a semantic stickler and I could get hit by a car later today. We don’t know if this is middle age. We don’t know anything.
This makes me sound like a New Age-y ding-dong, but — Go there. Come on. Let’s bring it out. Where are your crystals? I’ve got incense burning. Let’s do this.
What you said is exactly right: We can’t take for granted how much life we have left. But internalizing that, so that we can treat each day like it could be the last, is the hardest thing to do. As a formerly chronically stressed young woman, I just remember thinking one day: You are taking this for granted. You are taking your life for granted. You have no idea. Something could fall through the sky, and that would be lights out. So when I find the old instincts rising, I just tell myself, You are not going to die stressed.
This is a small question but maybe invites a big answer: What were you so stressed about? I didn’t know how to breathe yet. That was really complicated. I mean, it’s too — you’re right. It’s actually too big an answer and the simple answer is literally everything. I was very in my head about a lot of things.
Your answer to that question was about breathing. Earlier you alluded to not feeling comfortable in your body. Those are somatic things. You must have felt very alienated from your body. I love that you identified it as somatic. It feels a little too exposed to discuss the alienation I felt from my body, but there was a lot of somatic stress there.
Was drinking a way of dealing with that? Probably.
Fair enough. Let me ask you a goofier question now. OK. [Laughs.]
Then I’m going to circle back around to heavier stuff. The plot of the film turns on a trip to Coachella. Have you ever been to the festival? I have been to Coachella. Paul McCartney was the headliner, so it was magical.
Can I tell you a quick Coachella story? It can even be long.
I used to work for music magazines, and we had to cover the festival. So one year, it was too hot; I didn’t have enough water; I was drinking beer all day, taking other stuff, and by the end of the day I was fried and physically uncomfortable — You were so tweaked out.
I was like, I got to get out of here. And we had a plan that we would meet in the press area and someone would drive us back to our hotel. But I thought: I can’t wait. I’ll walk back to our hotel — it was 15 miles or whatever in the desert at night. I left the festival and within about 10 minutes realized I’m lost in the desert. No cars are coming by. My mind is totally foggy. I’m going to die on the highway trying to walk back to my hotel. Then a car pulls up and it’s my co-worker come to save me. They rescued you!
I got in the car and was like, “Thank god, I’ve been here forever, I didn’t know what I was going to do.” Then he looks at the clock: Like 22 minutes had passed. No. [Laughs.]
I was not at risk of dying. But to you, those 22 minutes —
Longest 22 minutes of my life. Well, I’m so happy everything went OK. Coachella is very dehydrating.
Very dehydrating. You know, I feel like I’ve danced around this: I’m wondering if you can tell me more about the change in you from a stressed-out person who’s, in your words, in her own head, to the person you are now. I don’t want to go into specifics too much, because I like to keep my personal things personal, but there was a moment in my life where — I don’t know. Do you ever have this feeling where you feel like you have yourself in the future, your best possible choice, turn around and guide you? Now I’m sounding very New Age.
Explain more about what you mean. I was just stuck in this feeling. It’s that thing about, I want to achieve things, I want to grow, and you think, mistakenly, that the way you do that is to be really hard on yourself. You drive yourself by self-criticism. I won’t go into the specifics, but there was a moment in which I realized that in order to keep that narrative alive, I was going to have to deny so much. I just said: You’re just going to have to accept that if nothing else happens to you, you’ve had a really great life. You have been given gifts and opportunities. And for you to continue to walk on this path, not being grateful, I don’t think that’s really who you are. It felt like a light went on.
What are the things that you want to achieve? What are the ambitions? Honestly, I don’t want to say, because they feel great to me, and I worry if I shared them and they got shredded — I don’t want to feel bad about them.
This is another one of the potential Easter eggs or self-referential lines that I picked up on in the film: There are a couple of references to Solène’s being picked apart on the internet. Did your experience going through that inform the character? Yes.
Can you tell me in what ways? Not really. It’s in the film.
Oh, phooey. Sorry. Look, what I can tell you is that, from personal experience, I knew that everything we were saying was true.
I can’t believe I just said “phooey.” Phooey.
Phooey! Oh, bluggernston!
In this conversation I’ve tried to create a throughline or arc to your career. Do you see a throughline or arc? I like to look toward the horizon rather than back at what I’ve done. I don’t watch my films. I love that so many of my movies are the films that you cuddle up with; I’m aware of that aspect of it, but the concept of having a name is weird. The idea of having a name that signifies something that could qualify as an Easter egg, it’s not a concept that I think about a lot.
Is anything cooking with a “Princess Diaries 3”? Yep.
Can you tell me more about that? I don’t think it would be nice.
There you go. I don’t want you to think you’re trapped here. I’m not trapped.
If you’re OK to go a little longer — I can leave this dinner party at any time. Have you read the book “Acts of Service”?
No. What is it? It’s a spicy book, but that’s a great line in it. A character finds herself exploring a situation that is uncomfortable but tantalizing to her, and she keeps thinking that I can leave this dinner party at any time I want.
Wait, does that mean you find this conversation uncomfortable but tantalizing? I’m finding this conversation really lovely.
Oh, good. I’m uncomfortable sometimes because I think you want me to reveal personal things, and I’m allergic to that. But I think that we’re having a wonderful time anyway.
In an ideal world, I always want people to be as personal as possible, but I also understand that that’s something that someone might not want to do, and that’s OK. I just find it hard to imagine that people are interested. I have a hard time making that leap.
You’ve also had the experience of people not being nice to you online. So I understand that it’s not as straightforward as I’m making it out. You’re right, and again, I find it hard to imagine that people would be interested in me. That’s one reason that I don’t know that I’m a very good celebrity. I don’t really know where the walls are between being intimate and narcissism and self-regard. And because of what I went through, I’m sensitive to the way it can come across. So I’d rather be cautious. The odd thing is that as soon as you stop recording this? All the details you want. But I’m probably not the best interview.
A few weeks later, I called Hathaway back to talk more about that caution.
I have a hunch that maybe you’re a ruminator. Is there anything about our conversation to this point that you’ve been thinking about? I had a slight word-choice remorse moment. You asked me what my goals are and I decided not to share them and the reason I gave was because I’d rather not have them “shredded.” That seemed a little harsh. I regretted that.
How would you rephrase it? I think I would rephrase it by saying it’s too tender. It’s a little less self-important.
Do you think it’s telling that your mind initially went to “shredded”? Oh, yeah. I think that’s some scar tissue. I understand why I said it, but it’s not actually reflective of how I feel. It’s what I fear, but not what I feel.
Something that I wanted to return to was: What are the things that used to stress you out so much? I’m just trying to make it more tangible. My goal is to heal it and not relive it. I’m not trying to be evasive. I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about it because I feel that I found a window and I climbed through it. I work hard to just be present. Like I said, I’m more grateful. I’m more settled in myself. I’m less afraid of things not happening. You know, the time in which I was an emerging adult was a different time. We weren’t having the types of conversations that we were having now.
Can I tell you a blindingly obvious realization about my own hypocrisy? Tell me everything.
When I’m asking you to make things more tangible or to go deeper, I’m thinking about that in light of the exchange that we had about hips. You asked me a question and I got the heebie-jeebies. I thought, I’m not talking about that. No!
Is the feeling that I had the feeling that you have doing these things? You know what it does? It puts me in a defensive position. Not defensive in the sense that I feel attacked but defensive in the sense that it’s hard to say something revealing with a tape recorder there. So I feel like I become a more self-conscious, more neutral version of myself. I watch other actresses, and they’re so free, they’re so off the cuff. Not that they’re more revealing, they’re just — I don’t know. I don’t have a word for it. We don’t usually ask people such direct questions. That’s not the way conversations are usually built. Normally trust is established by sharing something about ourselves and you build up a mutual understanding. So a part of me just resists the form of this.
It’s totally weird! And also just slightly rude. [laughs] But that’s just me. I need to work on accepting that this is just the way this is built.
As someone who’s interested in the life that animates the work, I’m curious about what it’s like to be you. That interest is obviously rooted in an assumption that having some understanding of you outside your work matters in some way. Do you think it matters? I think I understand the question. That my life is somehow as interesting as my work?
Or that for people to have an understanding of who you are outside the work is meaningful. I don’t want to distract from it. Also, going back to the thing about direct questions and whether I get the heebie-jeebies, I’m just very protective. The press can be opportunistic. I have this awesome story about Nick [Galitzine] that I want to tell. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t want to tell it, because I haven’t asked him if it’s cool and I’m aware that he’d have to answer questions about it for the next three months to 30 years.
Like the way that, I’m sure somewhat annoyingly, you’re still being asked questions, including by me, about bad experiences you had on the internet a lifetime ago? No, no. I don’t find you annoying. I value what you do. Just because I’m not the most innately forthcoming person doesn’t mean I don’t think that this isn’t a wonderful forum. I’m just amazed by people who can just express themselves.
You express yourself in different ways. I love expressing myself through my characters. You know, also I think — no, nevermind.
“I think — nevermind.” Bingo! Give me another 25 years. Maybe I’ll relax a little more.
I’ll get back in touch. I want to end on something fun though.
Tell me a funny story. You know what? When I was making “The Idea of You,” I was so spoiled, staying in a beautiful house in Atlanta, Georgia, that was much larger than my needs. I would get home from work, and I’d be in this house by myself, and that was giving me the heebie-jeebies. I was trying to figure out, like, why was I feeling this so intensely? And I realized there was no laughter in the house. You have a big house like that, you need laughter. So I started to listen to stand-up specials. I would come home and put them on. I got really into Adam Sandler’s “100% Fresh.” As extraordinary, beloved and iconic as Adam Sandler is, I think he’s underappreciated. I can quote you every line from “Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore” and “The Wedding Singer.”
Let’s trade lines from his movies: “I eat pieces of [expletive] like you for breakfast!” “You eat pieces of [expletive] for breakfast?”
You got it! “If peeing pants is cool, then call me Miles Davis.” I think that’s the line. [Laughs.] “Shampoo is better. I go on first and leave the hair clean. No, conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh, really fool? Blech, blech, blech.” Wait for it. “Stop looking at me, Swan!” [Hathaway’s Sandler quote here wasn’t exact, but it was close enough.]
Very good! I’m taking up your time now jabbering about Adam Sandler. But this is the part that I’m talking about: I feel much more comfortable talking about Adam Sandler, whom I’ve never met, than I do talking about what makes me tick. I just need to figure out how to practice.
I hope this has been part of that practice. Thank you very, very much. Be well. Stretch your hips out!
This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations. Listen to and follow The Interview on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music or The New York Times Audio app.