Anne Hathaway categorises her career into two parts: the first, a meteoric rise through Hollywood, from The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada to her Oscar-winning turn in Les Misérables.
The second brought her marriage to Adam Shulman, sons Jonathan and Jack, sobriety and a desire to make more room for life beyond acting.
In the September issue of marie claire, she lets us in on a new third chapter, one she describes as “seeking harmony between the two”.
From the outside, that harmony might be hard to spot. Hathaway is in the midst of one of the busiest years of her career, with five films this year arriving this year alone.
In May, she transformed into a troubled pop superstar opposite Michaela Coel in the musical drama Mother Mary.
That same month, she slipped back into Andy Sachs’ stilettos for The Devil Wears Prada 2, reuniting with Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci almost 20 years after the original.
In July, she took on Penelope in Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation of The Odyssey, alongside Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Zendaya.
In August, she returned to cinemas in The End of Oak Street, playing a mother whose suburban neighbourhood is mysteriously transported into a dangerous prehistoric world.
And in October, she’ll play the mysterious bestselling author at the centre of Verity, the big-screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s psychological thriller, opposite Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett.
Not to mention she is also currently pregnany with her third child.
But for Hathaway, harmony is not the same thing as balance. In fact, she’s all but given up on the latter. “My friends and I talk about it a lot, and we actually feel very defeated by the concept of balance,” says the cover star.
Instead, she’s interested in something more forgiving: allowing the weight of life to shift from one side to the other without constantly trying to even the scales. “We seek to harmonise our life.”
Also in the cover interview, Hathaway gets candid about ageing, pushing back on the idea that our younger years are necessarily our best. “Very often, conversations about ageing presume that the first part of life is the happiest and the most fulfilling, and I don’t necessarily think that’s true,” she says.
Now 43, Hathaway admits she’s been surprised by what getting older has brought: “I wasn’t expecting to find another gear at 40.”
She also opens up about learning to see her changing body differently, recalling a recent family holiday when she found herself feeling insecure in a swimsuit. Rather than wishing she looked younger, she reminded herself of what she was actually looking at: “You are 43.” The shift in perspective was immediate. “Looking at a 43-year-old body, I was like, ‘Nice.’”
The End of Oak Street is in cinemas now, and Verity is in cinemas from October 1. To read the full story, pick up a copy of marie claire’s September issue now.
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