While it’s hard to pinpoint an origin story for the backlash, it’s no secret that it became popular to hate on actress Anne Hathaway circa 2011 and 2012, the former being the year she hosted the Oscars with James Franco and the latter the year she won her first Oscar for “Les Misérables.” Perhaps it was the earnestness, possibly what was seen as an eager-to-please attitude. Still, the actress definitely took a perception hit in those ensuing years, seemingly adopted by the press as well.
In a new candid interview with Vanity Fair, the actress thanked director Christopher Nolan for continuing to cast her despite what she says was a growing worry from the studios and filmmakers about her “toxic” personality online.
“A lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online,” she admitted. “[But] 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.”
The film in question was 2014’s sci-fi space mission drama “Interstellar,” and Hathaway expressed gratitude for Nolan seemingly tuning out the backlash at the height of its period.
“I don’t know if he knew that he was backing me at the time, but it had that effect,” Hathaway continued. “And my career did not lose momentum the way it could have if he hadn’t backed me.”
Following her Oscar win, the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed Hathaway “the most annoying celebrity” of the year. Even the New York Times addressed the backlash with a 2013 article titled “Do We Really Hate Anne Hathaway?” and the New Yorker wrote a defense piece the same year.
“Humiliation is such a rough thing to go through. The key is to not let it close you down,” Hathaway said about learning to survive the experience of being hated online. “You have to stay bold, and it can be hard because you’re like, ‘If I stay safe, 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 of those things. And if it’s not costing you anything, what are you really offering?”
“Interstellar” used various black hole and gravity theories from a narrative perspective. In it, a group of humans are trying to colonize a new planet as Earth is dying. Hathaway played a scientist opposite Matthew McConaughey’s determined NASA pilot, obviously a prime spot in the cast that also featured Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, John Lithgow, Wes Bently, David Gyasi, David Oyelowo, and Matt Damon.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time Nolan had cast her, as Hathaway appeared as Catwoman before that in 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” Christopher Nolan is reportedly working on his next screenplay now. Maybe he’s reading the Vanity Fair article as we speak and planning on doubling down? Stranger things have happened.