Anne Hathaway found success when she first played Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries.
Anne Hathaway had already been acting professionally for a few years. Before that Disney movies came along. Unfortunately, being an underage actress starting in the business didn't stop Hathaway from dealing with awkward situations, like the time a reporter asked her a hair-raising question when she was just 16.
Anne Hathaway, who has a lot of great movies worth seeing, recalled this moment while she was talking about her new movie. Eileen, the black comedy thriller that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last Saturday. The film sees Hathaway playing a psychologist opposite Last Night in Soho's Thomasin McKenzie as the prison secretary, and as the actress told the crowd that she went to Eileen during the subsequent question-and-answer session (via Variety), working on the film created an important emotional connection for her. As she said it:
I just remembered one of the first questions I was asked when I started acting and had to do press was: Are you a good girl or a bad girl? She was 16 years old. And my 16-year-old self wanted to respond with this movie.
Anne Hathaway wouldn't name the project she'd been talking about when this reporter popped this hair-raising question, though if she had to guess, it might have been for her short-lived comedy-drama. Be realistic. This show, one of the many things Hathaway fans need to know about her, only aired from September 1999 to April 2000, and also starred Jesse Eisenberg and NCIS: Los Angeles' CBS heavy hitter Eric Christian. Olsen.
Whether that was the project or not, it's safe to say the reporter made the wrong move by asking the 16-year-old Hathaway that question, and it's yet another example of the misogyny the underage actress has faced in Hollywood. Hathaway's memory comes a month after Bella Thorne shared that there was pressure to fire her from Get It Off Her when she was 14 because she was seen in a bikini on the beach.
If there's a silver lining to that incident, it's that Anne Hathaway was able to channel that discomfort she felt all those years ago into her performance as Eileen. The film sees Thomasin McKenzie's character, whom she largely overlooks and cares for her alcoholic father, building a homoerotic relationship with Hathaway's character. Ottessa Moshfegh, who wrote the original Eileen novel, co-wrote the film adaptation with Causeway's Luke Goebel, and Lady Macbeth's William Oldroyd directed the feature film.
