The Interview - Anne Hathaway Is Done Trying to Please

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

On the debut of ’The Interview,' the actress talks to David Marchese about learning to let go of other people’s opinions.

This is The Interview, a new show from The New York Times. I'm David Marchese. On one level, Anne Hathaway's new movie, The Idea of You, couldn't be more straightforward. It's an adaptation of a novel about a woman who winds up in a relationship with a much younger singer in a boy band. The movie's an update of the kinds of movies that Hathaway was known for earlier in her career. Movies like The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada. These were movies where young women find themselves in entirely new situations and have to adapt to high pressure and glamorous worlds. The twist for the new movie, though,

is that Hathaway's playing a 40-year-old divorced mom, so she's coming in a little less starry-eyed about the whole thing. But The Idea of You also works on another, more complicated, I think you could even say meta level. It's a movie about women pushing against societal expectations of them and getting hate for it. And that is something Hathaway knows a bit about. A decade ago, around the time she won an Oscar for Les Miserables, the internet turned on Anne Hathaway. People decided, inexplicably, that she was an inauthentic striver or something like that. And the unfair backlash earned a nickname of its own, Hathahate. You might remember it. And it makes even less sense to me now than it did then.

But as Hathaway told me, for her, the past decade has been about letting go of people's opinions and expectations, including those of interviewers like me. But that hasn't made her any less fun to talk to. In some ways, it's made her more interesting than ever. And, I think, a great guest for my first episode. Here's my interview with Anne Hathaway. Hi, guys. Nice to meet you. I'm David. Nice to meet you, David. I'm Annie. Okay, so there are a bunch of things that are intriguing to me about the new movie, one of which is, I think, in kind of an interesting way that there are a few little, what I took to be like Anne Hathaway's psychological Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the film. And I'll get to those. But first, you haven't done a romance

in really kind of a while. I think it was, you know, since the days of One Day and Love and Other Drugs, more than 10 years ago now. So just to start, can you talk to me about why you wanted to do this movie? It's such a softball question and I can feel my brain complicating it. No, I want you to go as complicated as you can make it. That's much better. Sorry, everybody. If you can believe it, after all of these years, I always still find it so much more natural to express my thoughts and my feelings through characters and through the story. So a part of me just wants to be like, well, just see the movie. That's why I wanted to make it. But then I realized that 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. And I really found myself almost possessed with the need to explore what those two things meant and looked like. So I'm now curious about kind of the nature of that possession that you just described. Was it about like an abstract level or did you find it connected to something about you in a more direct way? Oh, it was completely direct. So tell me about that. Absolutely. It was totally direct. Well, I think that my character, Solemn Marchand, she might not seem like, I don't know, the most complicated character I've ever played. There's no accents.

There's no particular gait. I love it. I love a character's gait. But what she had going for her, she felt familiar. She felt like people I know. I recognized aspects of myself in her. I recognize aspects of my friends or women I admire. My friends are women I admire. That sounded awful. But the thing about her was she had a richness to

her, which combined with this idea that early in her life, she'd been a people pleaser. I was so excited by that idea of somebody arriving at a place in their life where they've grown out of that phase. I'm so glad you brought up that people pleaser line because that was one of the Easter eggs. Okay. A people pleaser from New Jersey. Yes. But before I get into that, you know, my vote for best Anne Hathaway character, Gate, Dark Knight. Thank you very, very much. So much swagger. Thank you very much. I worked with a choreographer for three weeks to find that swagger. Really? Yes, I did.

Because I just felt like I didn't have an... Oh, this is going to sound like a really rude sentence. But I wasn't connected enough to my hips. And I just kept imagining a cat's movements and the way it's very fluid and swishy, but also very strong and very purposeful. And they helped me find my hips. I think you need to introduce me to that choreographer because not being connected enough to my hips, I think, describes most of my life problems for the last 42 years. But maybe she can help. We are going to follow up because I have so many thoughts.

Because I didn't feel connected to my body early on in my life. And it was kind of this weird thing, like you don't know how to do it. And that's something that it's this amazing gift that acting has given me is that you always have to think about how you move, how your character moves. And eventually you just kind of get to understand movement. Why weren't you connected to your body? That's a great question. And we don't have, I mean, it would take me 41 years to answer that. It's genuinely so many things, but I think I probably just needed, I think it's just assumed

that we have a relationship with our body like you, like you, like 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? That is, oh boy, I don't know how to answer that question. Let's move on. Okay. But I want to go back to the people pleaser line. Okay. 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, so I think it might've been me who suggested that line, maybe, possibly. Am I wrong in interpreting that line self-referentially? Like, you are a people pleaser from New Jersey, right? I think I'm a former people pleaser from New Jersey. I, yeah, I think I absolutely was. I absolutely was. It was, again, to me, so much of the reason why I was drawn to acting was because it was an outlet for expression that I could not find on my own. And sort of in the space between feeling so connected when I was acting and so lost when I wasn't, you sort of try to make your way. And one of the ways that you make your way is like, oh, if I do this, that'll make someone else happy. And maybe that's what I'm supposed to be doing.

And it takes a really long time to go, well, it 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 as well. But I'm not that nice. I'm curious about when that shift

from people pleaser to former people pleaser started to happen, because it was interesting for me to revisit a lot of your work and see in a bunch of roles what I took to be kind of, and I don't mean this in a condescending way at all, but sort of like an eager beaver quality. You know, I'm thinking of things like, you know, The Devil Wears Prada or in some ways Princess Diaries or I think your character in Valentine's Day had that sort of, or in a slightly spikier way, maybe The Intern had that, you know?

So I'm interested in knowing about how that quality might have affected the work you did at a certain part of your career and if but they think is the right thing to do. and knowing who she was definitely in a professional sense, definitely knowing who she is as a mother, but not necessarily having given herself full freight to explore aspects of herself just as a person. You just referenced another key emotional through line of the film, which is the entering middle age aspect. And obviously, 40 years old is a real milestone for a lot of people, a lot of women. But there's also something weird about our cultural fixation on the arbitrary age of 40 years old. And I'm just curious how you think about entering middle age, given that it is or can be a fraught thing, particularly for people in your line of work, but also understanding that it is kind of a somewhat arbitrary fixation for people.

So serious. I don't take it that seriously. I gotta be honest. I, there are so many other things that 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. 40 feels like a gift. The fact of the matter is like, I hesitate at calling things middle age simply because I can be a little bit of a semantic stickler. And technically, I could get hit by a car later

today. I really hope it doesn't happen. And so we don't know if this is middle age. We don't know anything. So I like to connect to it in that way. I don't think this is breaking news. I'm a nerd. So I love learning. I am so into learning. And I just kind of like, I don't know. That's what I focus on. I just focus on, oh my God, I get to learn something today, hopefully. You know what you said about the semantics of using the term middle-aged when we don't really know or we can't know actually where in our lifespan we are, you know, this made me sound totally like a new agey ding dong, but- Get there, go there. Come on, let's go. Let's bring it out. Where are your crystals?

I've got incense burning on my side. Let's do this. You know, what you said is exactly right, that we can't take for granted how much life we have left, but actually internalizing that so that we can treat each day and moment like it could be the last, which would be the most powerful change we could make in our lives, is also maybe the hardest thing to actually do. Yeah. Well, one of the things that I think about a lot is, because I lived in a stressful place for many years, and when you talk about those performances, a key element to all of them, I think, is that they're really stressed out young women. And I was a really stressed out young woman. And as a formerly chronically stressed young woman, which leads to all manner of things,

I just remember thinking like one day, you are taking this for granted. You are taking your life for granted. Like you have no idea. Something could fall through the sky and that will be lights out for you. So when I find myself like the old instincts rising, I just tell myself, I'm like, you are not going to die stressed. It's a small question, but maybe invites a big answer. What were you so stressed about? I didn't know how to breathe yet.

And that was really complicated. That was really, really complicated, not knowing how to breathe. I mean, you're right. You're right. It's actually too big an answer. And the simple answer is just like literally everything. Yeah. Because I was stressed.

Yeah. I was just very, very, very in my head about a lot of things. I guess maybe that's the easiest way to put it. Yeah. It's interesting that your first answer to that question was about breathing. And earlier you alluded to not feeling comfortable in your body. Yeah. Those are two somatic things. You must have felt very alienated from your body yeah those are two somatic yeah things you must have felt very alienated from your body i love that you just um identified it as somatic i think i i it feels a little too exposed to discuss the alienation i felt from my body you know all of that thing but um but but i think that there was i think there was a lot of somatic stress there. Was drinking a way of dealing with that?

Probably. Yeah. Fair enough. Let me ask you a goofier question now, okay? Okay. And then I'm going to circle back to heavier stuff again. Okay. The plot of the film turns on a trip to Coachella. Have you ever been to the festival?

I have been to Coachella. Tell me about your experiences there. Paul McCartney was the headliner, so it was magical. You just, you go and you see these acts and you're just kind of like drifting in and out of waves of people. And it's a fun thing to do. I feel like everybody should go and kind of have their own experience. I don't know. It's probably very different now. Yeah. I think I went the same year that Paul McCartney. So that was probably 2000, I would guess, 10 or 12. Nine-ish, 10. Yeah. Something like. Yeah. Yeah. Can I tell you a very quick Coachella story?

It can even be long. Well, I don't want to take up our short time with a long co-chance. But I used to work for music magazines. You know, we used to have to go and cover this stuff. So one year that was too hot, I didn't have enough water. I was like drinking beer all day, taking other stuff. And really, by the end of the day, I was like so fried and physically uncomfortable. You were so tweaked out. Oh, no, that's a bad combination. I was like, fried and physically uncomfortable. You were so tweaked out. Oh no, that's a bad combination. I was like, I got to get out of here. And we had a plan that, you know,

at like 1130, we'd all meet, you know, in like the press area. And then someone would drive us back to our hotel. But I thought, I can't wait till then. I just got to get out of here. So I thought I'll walk back to our hotel. This is the state of mind I was in. Probably the hotel was like, oh my God, you thought you were going to walk back? No. 15 miles or whatever in the desert at night. So I just left the festival. And within about 10 minutes, I realized like, I'm lost in the desert. I'm so stressed and worried for you right now. No cars are coming by. I don't know where I am. My mind is totally foggy. But like,

somehow I'm going to die on the highway trying to walk back to my hotel. And then, you know, after some period of time, a car pulls up and it's my coworkers come to save me, you know, and I, they rescued you. I get in the car and I was like, oh, thank God. Like I've been here forever. I didn't know what I was going to do. And, and then, um, he like looks at the clock and then looks behind him. Literally like 22 minutes had passed. I was like an eighth of a mile away from the, I was not at risk of dying. But it felt to you, those 22 minutes. Longest 22 minutes of my life.

Oh my gosh. Well, I'm so happy everything went okay. Thank you. But yeah, no, Coachella is very dehydrating. Very dehydrating, yeah. You know, I feel like I have sort of danced around this question a couple times, but to me, the most interesting thing about people is when they change, you know, when they were one thing and they become another thing. And I'm wondering if you can tell me a little more about the change that I think I'm hearing in you, sort of implicitly, from kind of like a stressed out, knotted up person, who's, in your words, in her own head, to the person you are now?

Change is certainly a word that applies. Another word is, I don't like this word because I think it's often misunderstood, so maybe I shouldn't even say it, but I'd love to explore it with you if you want to explore it. Settles. I think settling often has a negative connotation, but actually, to me, when settle becomes beautiful, it's like that concept of surrender.

And I think gratitude is really crucial to it. And I don't want to go into specifics too much just 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, that your best possible choice turn around and guide you? Now I'm sounding very new age. Explain to me more what you mean. Well, I was just stuck in this feeling and I've been stuck in a feeling for a while. And it's that thing about, I want to achieve things. I want to grow. I want to do these things. And I think you think mistakenly that the way that you do that is

you're really hard on yourself. And you drive yourself by self-criticism, by telling yourself you're not enough. And I won't go into the specifics of it, but there was a moment in which I just realized that in order to keep that narrative alive, I was going to have to deny so much. And there was just something about that. There was something about me being aware that in order to keep up this narrative, which by the way, I didn't feel like I was improving anymore. I feel like I'd strongly, strongly plateaued. And I just said, you're going to have to accept,

you're just going to have to accept that if nothing else happens to you, you've had a really great life. And it felt like, I don't know, it just felt like a light went on. You know what else is something that I find interesting is not the right word, but a realization I had about sort of motivating yourself through negativity is that you never get to the bottom of it. You know, it's like you can just keep getting more and more negative and it's not like you ever hit some rock bottom or like okay now i can be pot it's just

it's an endless yeah yeah that resonates you described yourself as a person who wants to achieve things yeah what are the things that you want to achieve like what are the ambitions now i don't i don't feel comfortable getting too specific. I think it just comes from being raised in a superstitious household. I think that, again, I feel, I don't know. Honestly, I don't really want to say because I just feel like 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. I actually feel really great about them. So, but I just think that just acknowledging that you are someone who is ambitious, acknowledging

that you are someone who, yeah, I do want to achieve things. But I'd say that like my ambition right now is to do all of that and really, really be a nurturing presence in people's lives as well. This is another one of the potential Easter eggs or sort of self-referential lines that I thought I picked up in the film. And the reason I'm thinking about it now is because when I asked you about ambitions, you said you don't necessarily want to put it out there because if it got shredded, it would make you feel bad about it. And there are a couple points in the film where, you know, there are references to your character being picked apart on the internet.

And did your experience going through that, you know, a decade plus ago, inform the character? Yes. Can you tell me in what ways not really it's in the film how phooey sorry uh just just just uh look what i can tell you is that from personal experience i knew that everything we were saying was true you know it happens yeah i can't believe I just on the record said phooey. Phooey. Oh. Phooey. Oh, bluggerns done. I just read this great, great, great list of Victorian, like common Victorian expressions that are so literal and filthy. And I can only think of one right now that I couldn't possibly say.

Wait, tell me off the record, off the record. Off the record. It's filthy. So we're back on the record now. And for the record, we laughed heartily yes yeah and hathaway said a very inappropriate thing it was the victorians i simply i was just repeating victorian slang yes uh it was a conversation uh furthering the idea of semantics uh um uh it that's such a funny way of putting it, excuse me. So clearly at a couple different times in this conversation, I've tried to create a through line or an arc to your career, you know,

where I was saying, it seemed like you did this here or like this happened at this point. And how does that sort of affect things now? Do you see a through line or a particular arc to your career? I'm not terribly reflective. I like to look towards the horizon that's coming at me rather than look back at what I've done. Like, I don't watch my films. I'm not sitting around having marathons. It's so sweet. I get texts from friends and from people. And like, I was just on a plane the other day, and they were like, oh, my God, I watched Devil Wears Prada last night. And so like people, I know, I love that so many of my movies are the films that you cuddle

up with. You know, and I do know that. I'm aware of that aspect of it. But in terms of like the concept of having, first of all, the concept of having a name is so weird, a name that people recognize. It's like, I always think about the least likely things that could happen to you as an actor. And one of them is that you have a name that people actually know.

So the idea of having a name that signifies something that could qualify as having an Easter egg, it's just, it's, it's no, it's, that's not a concept that I think about a lot. I guess my question was whether a different kind of role than the ones we talked about earlier in the conversation started to appeal to you more or speak to you more at this stage of your career. No, I've always loved spiky, difficult women. Always.

That's kind of, you know, you have to understand that when I was 23 years old, I made a film with Jonathan Demme called Rachel Getting Married. And when I was... Oh, but before that, when I was 21 years old, I got to make a film with Ang Lee called Brokeback Mountain. And so I do think that my... I'm lucky enough to say that within my filmography, there has always been both. And I think that the last 10 to 12 years has been a less romantic era. So I just kind of assumed that that was done and that kind of phase of my career was over. And so then to find something that actually said, nah, it's not over. And why would you think that it needed to be? That was really cool to me. Is anything cooking with a Princess Diaries 3?

Yep. Ah, I know the answer, but could you tell me more about that? I don't think it would be nice. There you go. So, you know, I don't want you to think you're trapped here. I think we're about done with the time that I've been- I'm not trapped. If you're okay to go a little longer, I have- I think we're about done with the time that I've been... I'm not trapped.

If you're okay to go a little longer, I have... I can leave this dinner party at any time. No, which is a great line. Have you read the book Acts of Service? No, what is it?

It's a spicy book. But anyway, that's a great line in it where a character finds herself exploring a situation that is uncomfortable but really tantalizing to her. And she keeps thinking of this line that she's learned either through a short story

or I'm not quite sure where, that I can leave this dinner party at any time I want. And so I always think that. So I often don't feel trapped. Wait, does that mean you find this conversation uncomfortable but tantalizing? I'm just finding this conversation really lovely. Oh, good.

I'm uncomfortable sometimes just because I think you want me to reveal personal things, and I'm just allergic to that. But I think that we're having a wonderful time anyway. Yeah. You know, it's such an interesting thing where in an ideal world, I always want people to be as personal as possible. But I also fully understand that that's something that someone might not want to do. And that's okay.

I just also find it really hard to imagine that people are interested. Oh, you know, this is the thing. I cannot believe that people are so interested in the sound of my voice and what my brain has. I just, I have a hard time making that leap. But then you've also had the experience of people not being nice to you. So I totally, I fully understand that it's not as straightforward

as I'm making it out to be. No, no, but it also is. And you're right. And a hundred percent. And like, again, it's just hard for me to imagine. I find it hard to imagine that people would be interested in me. Like that's just a part

that I just haven't arrived at yet. And that's one of the reasons why I don't know that I'm a very good celebrity in that because I don't really know where the walls are between like when it becomes when like just being personal and just being intimate, like just like letting intimate details out. I don't know where the wall between that and narcissism and that and self-regard. And I think I'm a little, because of what I went through, I'm sensitive to the way it can come across. And so I would rather be cautious. But then the odd thing is, is that as soon as you stop recording this, all the details you want, like Literally, I don't hold back. It's just because it feels like,

okay, but now it's contained. Now it's safe. But under these things, I think I'm probably not the best interview. To that end, we're going to talk again for a much shorter period in about a week and a half,

something like that. Awesome. You could say, you know, you were week and a half, something like that. Awesome. You could say, you know, you were wrong about all that. I love that. I forgot to say this. I love the marination time in between. I think that's, funny enough, really essential to any kind of long-form conversation. Cool.

Thank you very much for taking all the time to talk with me today. I appreciate it. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. After the break, I give Anne a call back, and the interview gets a little more meta. A part of me just kind of resists the form of this. Yeah.

Well, it's totally arbitrary and weird, yeah. And also just slightly rude. Welcome back to the interview. I'm David Marchese. Hi, David. Hi. Hi, I'm so sorry to be a couple minutes late. My espresso machine

was betraying me. That's totally okay. How are you? I mean, I think I'm caffe sorry to be a couple minutes late. My espresso machine was betraying me. That's totally okay. How are you? I mean, I think I'm caffeinated enough now, but I'm all right. I'm all right. I am curious, because 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? Well, I had a slight word choice in the worst moment. our conversation to this point that you've been thinking about? Well, I had a slight word choice in the worst moment, where you asked me what my goals are coming up, and I kind of decided not to share them. And the reason I gave was because I'd rather not have them shredded. And that just seemed a little harsh, and I just regretted that. And how would you rephrase it? I think I would rephrase it just saying it's too tender. Yeah.

That is very different than shredded. Yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of like, you know, and it's just kind of a little bit less self-important. Do you think it's telling that your mind initially went to shredded? Oh, yeah. I think that's from scar tissue. I understand why I said it, but also it's not actually reflective of how I feel.

Right. It's reflective of what I fear, but not what I feel. I think we're going to get back to that. But before then, something that I wanted to return to was, what are the things that used to stress you out so much, or that would make you be in your own head? I'm just, because it's something that you've referred to a couple times and how you're not stressed out about those things anymore or less in your head about them.

I'm just trying to make it a little more tangible. Like, are you able to articulate what some of those... My goal is to heal it and not relive it. So I'm not trying to be evasive. It's just, I don't really spend a great deal of time thinking about it because I feel like I found a window and I climbed through it and I I work very hard to just be really present here I think I'm I'm like I said I'm more grateful I'm more I'm more settled in myself I'm I'm less afraid of things not happening the time in which I was an emerging adult, it was a different time.

We weren't having the conversations that we were having now. So I think a lot of me, a lot of my, my thoughts felt very under expressed. So I, maybe I, so I don't know if it's more curiosity in the world, or maybe we have the shared language now that feels uh more gentle you know i i just i feel that there's greater curiosity now unless harshness at least in my personal experience my god that was such a long answer excuse me oh groping in the dark that's that's all we're ever doing is groping in the dark. That's all we're ever doing is groping in the dark.

I think. Can I tell you a maybe like a what's a blindingly obvious realization about my own hypocrisy? Oh, my God. That's so deep. Tell me everything. It's not so deep. Tell me everything. that in the light of the little exchange that we had about hips remember that and and you asked me a question and i really got like the um you know it's almost like a the visceral heebie-jeebies i thought i'm not talking about that no and then i thought gosh that must be what it feels like for you every time i ask a question asking you to go deeper? Is the feeling

that I had the feeling that you have all the time doing these kinds of things? Heebie-jeebies. Does it give me the heebie-jeebies? It makes me, you know what it does? It just puts me in a defensive position. And not in defensive in the sense that I feel attacked but defensive in the sense that it's really hard to say something revealing with a tape recorder there and so I just feel like I become a more self-conscious a more neutral version of myself like I watch other actresses and they're so free and they're so off the cuff and they just not that they're more revealing they're just i don't know maybe i don't even have a word for it but um anyway so i don't get the heebie-jeebies but i don't know that this is uh like i won't take pauses like this to

consider my words that much if we were just having coffee and there wasn't a tape recorder, you know? Yeah. But do you, you know, it's... That's just something people are... We don't usually ask people such direct questions. Like, that's just not the way conversations are usually built. Normally, trust is established each by sharing something about ourselves and you build up a mutual understanding of each other. And so a part of me just kind of resists the form of this yeah well it's a totally arbitrary and weird yeah

but and also just slightly rude but that's just me and i just need to i just kind of need to work on accepting like i said that this is just the way this is built. Well, you know, I definitely heard you when you said, you know, you're more comfortable sort of talking about and through your characters than talking about yourself. But, you know, as someone who has my job and as someone who's interested in the person and the life that animates the work. I'm of course curious about you and what it's like to be you. And that interest is, you know, it's obviously rooted in an assumption that who you are is meaningful to audiences or fans, you know, that the idea that they have some understanding of you outside your work matters in some way.

Do you think that matters? I think I understand the question, that my life is somehow as interesting as my work. Or just that people having an understanding of who you are outside of the work is in some way meaningful. Just trying to think if it's meaningful to me with other people.

Yeah. I don't know. Do you ever have the experience that sometimes you just want to watch a film in another language because you're less familiar with the personal life of the actor and it just lets you get lost in the story? I know what you mean, yeah.

So a part of me, I would rather the people, I don't know, it's kind of strange, but I don't want want to be I worry about like other people in the way the press can be opportunistic because I can have a perfectly lovely respectful conversation with you and then to have something that is real and meaningful and personal and to like watch it get filtered through all the different levels of media until it like arrives at the tabloid version. It just kind of makes you never want to say anything that could be, I'm going to use a big word, and it's probably an unwise word to use,

but that can be weaponized against the actor. Like I have like this awesome story about Nick that I want to tell, and it's like on the tip of my tongue right now, but I don't want to tell it because I haven't asked him if it's cool. You're a co-star in the film yeah yes and i'm just 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 i mean i, I don't know. I don't find you annoying. I value what you do. And just because I'm not the most innately forthcoming person doesn't mean I don't think that this isn't a wonderful forum in a lot of ways. And yeah, I'm just amazed by people who can just express themselves. I'm amazed by them. Well, you just express yourself in different ways.

I really love expressing myself through my characters. I really, really do. I kind of... Also, I think... No, never mind. The most telling Anne Hathaway, you know I think, never mind. Bingo.

Give me another 25 years. Maybe I'll relax a little bit more. All right. I'll get back. I'll get back in touch then. I do want to end on something fun, though. Tell me a funny story. You know what? This didn't happen on set, but I can tell you something. When I was making the idea of you, I was very lucky, so spoiled, staying in a beautiful house in Atlanta, Georgia, that was much larger than my needs. So I would get home from work and I'd be in this house by myself. And I was just like, and it was just, that was giving me the heebie-jeebies. And I was trying to figure out what was like, why was I feeling this so intensely? And I realized there was no laughter in the house.

And when you have a big house like that, you need laughter. And so I started to listen to stand up specials and I got really into Adam Sandler's 100% fresh. And I think that Adam Sandler is as extraordinary, beloved and iconic as Adam Sandler is, I think he's underappreciated. I think he's such a stealth genius. You know,

like, I have that kind of level of just appreciation for him. I can quote you every single line from Billy Madison and Taffy Gilmore. And the wedding singer.

I'm a big fan. I'm going to put your feet to the fire. Let's trade Sandler lines. I'll go first from his movies. I eat piece to put your feet to the fire. Let's trade Sandler lines. I'll go first from his movies. I eat a piece of shit like you for breakfast. You eat

pieces of shit for breakfast? Oh, you got it! Hold on, hold on. No, no, then the best follow-up ever. No. If peeing my pants is cool, then I'm Miles Davis. Or call me Miles Davis. I think that's a lie.

Okay, okay, okay. 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 smooth. Bleh, bleh, bleh. Hold on, wait for it.

Stop looking at me, schwan. Very good. Very good. Very good. You know, I feel bad. I'm just taking up your time now, just jabbering about Adam Sandler. So this is what I'm talking about. This is the part that I'm talking about. Like, I feel much more comfortable talking about Adam Sandler, who I've never met, than I do like talking about what makes me tick.

I feel like, you know, you get to know somebody just by talking about stuff rather than describing yourself, you know? I do, I do, yeah. But that's also, again, I just need to figure out how to practice. Well, I hope this has been part of that practice. And I, again, just want to say thank you.

And maybe sometime I'll see you down the line and we'll talk about Adam Sandler. Thank you very, very much. And be well, be well, stretch your hips out. All right. Take care. All right. Bye. That was Anne Hathaway. Her new movie is The Idea of You, and it's on Prime Video starting May 2nd. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear another great conversation, well, we've got one for you. Since this is the first week of our new show, we're launching with two episodes. My co-host is Lulu Garcia Navarro, and this week she's talking to Yair Lapid,

the opposition leader in Israel, about what's next for his country. For those of us who are history buffs, we know that sometimes it takes only one really bad government in order to, I don't want to say destroy, but weaken a country from within significantly. If you like what you're hearing, subscribe to The Interview wherever you get your podcasts. a country formed within significantly. Ephim Shapiro. Fact-checking by Lou Fong. Original music by Marian Lozano, Diane Wong, and Dan Powell. Photography by Devin Yelkin. The rest of the team is Seth Kelly and Priya Matthew. Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Bareilly, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik. Email the show anytime at theinterviewatnytimes.com. I'm David Marchese, and this is The Interview from The New York Times.