Anne Hathaway Says Christopher Nolan Saved Her From 'Hathahate'

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | March 27, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | March 27, 2024 |

Anne Hathaway is the cover star for Vanity Fair’s April issue, where she opens up about a dark time in her career. Remember when she won the best supporting actress Oscar for Les Misérables in 2013 and then everyone hated her? Yourself included, perhaps? She says it reached a tipping point online that ruined her reputation and cost her work.

“Hathahate” was born of … I’m still not sure, honestly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the world’s biggest fan or anything, but I’ve always been confused by the vitriol directed at her. As far as I can tell, people were just tired of her right around that Oscar win. And, of course, “annoying” was the worst thing you could call a woman in 2013 (in today’s parlance, it would probably be “pick me girl.”)

“A lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online,” she says. But she had an unexpected saving grace: Christopher Nolan, who cast her in Interstellar in 2014.

“I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of. I don’t know if he knew that he was backing me at the time, but it had that effect. And my career did not lost the momentum the way it could have if he hadn’t backed me.”

I would wager Nolan did not know he was “backing” her because he’s probably above the weird sexist zeitgeist of which actresses are annoying and unlikable, but whatever Anne needs to tell herself to sleep soundly at night is fine with me.

She’s learned from the experience, and she has a message for future hopeful actors:

“Humiliation is such a rough thing to go through. The key is to not let it close you down. You have to stay bold, and it can be hard because you’re like, ‘If I stay sage, if I hug the middle, if I don’t draw too much attention to myself, it won’t hurt.’ But if you want to do that, don’t be an actor. You’re a tightrope walker. You’re a daredevil. You’re asking people to invest their time and their money and their attention and their care into you. So you have to give them something worth all those things. And if it’s not costing you anything, what are you really offering?”

So, what I’m hearing is all that Hathahate only makes her stronger.