Anne Hathaway talks to Tim Nasson
2006 is turning out to be a great year for New York City native, Anne Hathaway, and the first month of the year isn’t even over.
The Disney diva who shot to the top of the popularity line with little girls, what with the two “Princess Diaries” movies and “Ella Enchanted,” shed her tiara for “Havoc,” a straight-to-video release late last year, in which she bares it all, and “Brokeback Mountain,” in which she plays the wife of gay ranch hand, Jake Gyllenhaal.
While “Brokeback Mountain” is the movie to beat at this year’s Academy Awards, and just happens to be the most critically lauded movie of the year, if not decade, Hathaway is back on the big screen, in a movie her younger fans will adore her, er, her voice, in.
“Hoodwinked” is a retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood,” with the emphasis on the definition ‘hood’ being ghetto, rather than head covering, and Hathaway voices the Red Riding Hood character, Red.
On a recent chilly morning in New York City, I sat with Anne Hathaway for breakfast at The Drake Hotel.
“It’s so great to be inside where it’s nice and warm,” says Hathaway, who is no longer the bleached blonde she is in “Brokeback Mountain.”
“We had this running joke on the set of ‘Brokeback,'” begins Hathaway, laughing. “Everyone, including my character, ages twenty years in the film. So I was always saying, the older my character gets the more bleached her hair gets.”
Dressed in a tight, black, wool sweater, revealing her ample bosom, twenty-three year old Hathaway, who has lived in NYC for quite some time with her boyfriend, (who just bought her a puppy), chuckles when I ask her first ‘adult role,’ in which she bared it all, in “Havoc,” a straight-to-DVD movie, yet which is Unrated.
“I have no problem with nudity,” she answers. “It’s all about the role and the way it is written. If the film is not exploitive, why should there be any concern about it?”
While the large majority of movie lovers will never hear about “Havoc,” let alone see it, replete with all of Hathaway’s nude scenes, few who have not seen “Brokeback Mountain” would guess they catch a glimpse of her naked body in that film.
“Some people who have not seen ‘Brokeback’ think it’s some gay porn movie. I think they would be surprised to find out that both Michelle [Williams] and I bare our boobs in the movie, while having sex with our husbands. I think there is more hetero sex shown in the movie than gay sex, and to be honest, there is more nudity in the hetero sex than there is in the gay sex. But all of the sex in ‘Brokeback’ is artistic, and exactly as it is described in the book. There is nothing titillating about it,” except, perhaps, if a twelve year old, straight boy saw it.
As for “Hoodwinked,” Hathaway was happy to get back to her kid-friendly film roots. “I had a lot of fun doing the voice of ‘Red,'” she exclaims. “But I did that so long ago. It was supposed to come out months ago.” At least “Hoodwinked” isn’t going straight to DVD.
Hathaway just wrapped filming on what is sure to be on of the best comedies of the summer, “The Devil Wears Prada.”
For any who have not read the achingly hilarious novel, about a New York City fashion magazine personal assistant to a bitchy boss from hell, Hathaway plays the assistant/slave to Meryl Streep’s Devil. The story is reminiscent of the 1980s classic, “Working Girl,” yet taken to a much higher bitch level.
“I can’t tell you how great it was to work with Meryl, even though she had to be a bitch in every scene we were in together. I wouldn’t be surprised if she won her third Best Actress Oscar for this role,” a humble Hathaway hums.
Stay tuned for this year’s Oscar nominations, where there is a chance the entire cast of “Brokeback Mountain” will be rewarded with Academy Award nominations of their own.
