Background

Ethnicity: Anne Hathaway's mother is of Irish descent, and her mather is of Irish, French, English and German ancestry.

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on November 12, 1982. Her father, Gerald, is a labor attorney, and her mother, Kate (née McCauley), is a former actress. Hathaway’s family moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Millburn, a New Jersey suburb, when she was six years old. When she was young, Hathaway toured with her mother during the production of the musical Les Misérables, which spurred her to pursue a career in theatre. She is the second of three children, with two brothers, one older, Michael, and one younger, Thomas.

Education

Anne Hathaway attended Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and Wyoming Elementary School in Millburn. She graduated from Millburn High School in New Jersey in June 2000 with the highest honors. During the school period, she played soccer and participated in many plays, including Once Upon a Mattress, in which she portrayed Winnifred. Also, she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1993 and became the first teenager admitted into the Barrow Group Theater Company's acting program.

After high school, Hathaway headed to Vassar College to study English and women’s studies. After a few semesters, she transferred to New York University‘s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

Career

After graduating from high school in 2000, Hathaway began to pursue film work. She made her professional screen debut in the short-lived Fox television series Get Real (1999-2000). In 2001, she was cast in the lead role of Mia Thermopolis in the Disney production’s comedy film ‘The Princess Diaries’, based on Meg Cabot's 2000 novel of the same name. The movie became a big hit and peaked at #3 in the box office. She went on to appear in the movie’s sequel, ‘The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement’, in 2004. Hathaway went on to become a widely praised "role model for children" for her roles in Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Ella Enchanted (2004), and Hoodwinked! (2005).

Hathaway began to transition to more adult roles in 2005, winning a DVD Exclusive Award for Best Actress for Havoc (2005). Although film was thematically different from her previous films, Hathaway denied that her role was an attempt to be seen as a more mature actress, citing her belief that doing nudity in certain films is merely a part of what her chosen form of art demands of her; and because of that belief she does not consider appearing nude inappropriate films to be morally objectionable. Hathaway showed her serious side in 2005's "Brokeback Mountain," starring alongside Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Michelle Williams. The film tells the story of two cowboys who form a secret romantic relationship and follows their lives through the years. It won three Academy Awards and was nominated for five others.

In 2006 she found huge success with The Devil Wears Prada as an assistant to the powerful fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly, garnering further recognition for appearing alongside Meryl Streep. The Devil Wears Prada became Hathaway's biggest commercial success to this point, grossing more than $326.5 million worldwide. Another one of her acclaimed roles came in 2007 when she played Jane Austen in the historical biographical film ‘Becoming Jane’. The movie depicts the complicated love story between Jane and Thomas Langlois Lefroy.

Hathaway received much acclaim for playing the role of a woman who deals with the guilt of having caused her brother’s death in the drama film, Rachel Getting Married in 2008. Her poignant performance of a drug addict whose careless action leads to her brother’s death earned her several awards.

Hathaway played the White Queen in Tim Burton's 2010 adaptation of the fantasy novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (2018) alongside Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. Alice in Wonderland received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its visuals but criticized its lack of narrative coherence. Commercially, the film grossed $1 billion to become the second highest-grossing movie of 2010.

In 2011, Hathaway voiced Jewel in the animated film Rio and hosted the 83rd Academy Awards with James Franco, which was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Program. In 2012, she portrayed Catwoman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Hathaway's role of Fantine in the 2012 film Les Misérables is also undoubtedly one of her best performances. She portrayed a poor factory worker who struggles to raise her illegitimate child. Even though Hathaway was initially considered not mature enough for the role, she silenced her detractors with her impeccable performance. The film was a critical as well as a commercial success and Hathaway was especially appreciated for her performance.

Hathaway provided the voice of a macaw in the animated Rio (2011) and its sequel, Rio 2 (2014). Hathaway then joined the ensemble cast of Nolan’s space drama Interstellar (2014), playing a scientist attempting to locate a habitable planet after Earth is rendered unlivable by war and famine. She returned to comedy with The Intern (2015), in which she was featured as a fashion entrepreneur who hires a retiree (Robert De Niro).

In 2016 Hathaway reprised her role as the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass and portrayed a woman who discovers that she has a strange connection to a gigantic beast in the comedy Colossal. She garnered enthusiastic reviews for her performance as a self-absorbed actress in Ocean’s 8 (2018), a female-driven reboot of the Ocean’s Eleven franchise from the 2000s. Her credits from 2019 included Serenity, a thriller in which her character solicits her ex-husband (Matthew McConaughey) to commit murder.

Hathaway will be seen opposite Rebel Wilson and Alex Sharp in The Hustle (2019), a remake of the 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. She will appear in The Last Thing He Wanted, directed by Dee Rees, and in Dry Run, directed by Todd Haynes. She is set to star in Robert Zemeckis's film adaptation of The Witches and will also play the starring role in a new movie based on the Sesame Street franchise.

Achievements

• Hathaway's most acclaimed and highest-grossing films, according to the online portal Box Office Mojo and the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, include The Princess Diaries (2001), Brokeback Mountain (2005), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Get Smart (2008), Rachel Getting Married (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Love and Other Drugs (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Les Misérables (2012), Interstellar (2014), The Intern (2015), Colossal (2016), and Ocean's 8 (2018).
  
  Hathaway has an outstanding talent and acting skills and has has been nominated for numerous prestigious awards, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a British Academy Film Award. She has won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild and a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for Les Misérables. She has also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for her voice role in a 2010 episode of The Simpsons. In November 2018, Hathaway was one of 50 nominees for the New Jersey Hall of Fame, an organization that honors contributions to society and the world beyond.
  
  Forbes reported Hathaway as one of the highest paid actresses of 2015, and since 2017 she is among the highest-grossing actresses of the 21st century. In 2009, Hathaway was included in Forbes' annual list of Celebrity 100 with earnings of $7 million and was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Analyzing her earnings in 2010, the magazine included her in Hollywood's Best Actors for the Buck, the highest return profit among actresses. By October 2017, her films had grossed $6.4 billion worldwide. Profiled as among the world's leading actresses by Vanity Fair, Hathaway, according to Catherine Elsworth of The Daily Telegraph, is pursued both by directors and cosmetics companies. In January 2008, she joined French luxury perfumes and cosmetics house Lancôme as the face of their fragrance Magnifique. In 2011, Hathaway became the new face of the Italian company Tod's.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Interstellar

    (From director Christopher Nolan (Inception) comes the sto...)

    2014
  • Passengers

    (While helping a handful of plane crash survivors cope wit...)

    2008
  • The Devil Wears Prada

    (A young woman from the Midwest gets more than she bargain...)

    2006
  • Bride Wars

    (When a clerical error causes a clash in wedding dates, tw...)

    2009
  • Valentine's Day

    (An all-star ensemble cast comes together in "Valentine's ...)

    2010
  • Les Miserables

    (Hugh Jackman, Oscar-winner Russell Crowe and Anne Hathawa...)

    2012
  • Havoc

    (A group of wealthy Los Angeles teenagers try to become pa...)

    2005
  • The Dark Knight Rises

    (In this epic conclusion to the Dark Knight trilogy, the e...)

    2012
  • Rachel Getting Married

    (Rachel Getting Married is a contemporary drama with an ag...)

    2008
  • Serenity

    (A fishing captain's (Matthew McConaughey) quiet life is s...)

    2019
  • One Day

    (Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess star in this romantic come...)

    2011
  • The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

    (Princess Mia has just turned 21 and is supposed to succee...)

    2004
  • The Intern

    (In "The Intern, " Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) is a 70-...)

    2015
  • Love & Other Drugs

    (A womanizing pfizer drug rep with no sense of direction o...)

    2010
  • Ocean's 8

    (Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) recruits a crew of speciali...)

    2018
  • The Princess Diaries

    (A teenager finds that she is the princess of a small Euro...)

    2001
  • Get Smart

    (In the world of covert intelligence, only one man is Smar...)

    2008
  • Alice in Wonderland

    (Alice falls into a magical world with strange characters.)

    2010
  • Becoming Jane

    (Meet twentyish Jane Austen: in love...and on a path that ...)

    2007

Religion

Hathaway was raised as Roman Catholic with what she considers "really strong values" and stated that she wished to be a nun during her childhood, but acting was always a high priority for her. At the age of 15, her relationship with the Catholic Church changed, after learning that Michael was gay. Her family left the church due to its intolerance of homosexuality, converting to Episcopalianism, but left that too. Hathaway said: "I disagree with a couple of the stances of the Catholic Church. My older brother is gay and it's important for me to be able to love him completely and freely and it's important for me to spread beliefs in the world that are not going to limit people in their love. I can't support a religion that doesn't support my brother."

In 2009, Hathaway stated that her religious beliefs are "a work in progress".

Politics

For the 2012 presidential election, Hathaway co-hosted a $38,500-a-plate fundraiser for Obama.5 Hathaway said of President Obama: "I was kind of afraid of Obama the first time I saw him. I thought I’ve been burned by guys like you before. I’ve been burned by politicians before that I wanted to believe in and just didn’t live up to it… It was around the time that he gave his speech on race that I just said ‘I can’t deny how I feel about you, Barack Obama. I want you to be the president. I want you in the White House."

Views

Hathaway has served as a long-term advocate for the Nike Foundation to raise awareness against child marriage. In July 2006, she spent a week in Nicaragua to help vaccinate children against hepatitis A. She has also traveled to other countries to heed the rights of women and girls, including Kenya and Ethiopia. In 2008, she was honored at Elle magazine's "Women in Hollywood" tribute and won an award from the Human Rights Campaign for her philanthropy; she was also honored for her work with Step Up Women's Network in 2008. She then teamed up in 2010 with World Bank in a two-year development program The Girl Effect whose mission focuses on helping empower girls in developing and developed nations where one-third of young women are not employed and not in school. In 2013, she provided the narration for Girl Rising, a CNN documentary film, which focused on the power of female education as it followed seven girls around the world who sought to overcome obstacles and follow their dreams.

Hathaway currently serves on the board of the Lollipop Theatre Network and is involved with charities Creative Coalition, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Human Rights Campaign. She is a supporter of LGBT rights and has donated money to organizations that support gay marriage. In 2016, Hathaway was appointed United Nations Women Goodwill ambassador based on her advocacy for gender equity. The following year, she spoke on International Women's Day in favor of paid parental leave for both men and women. To promote an increased awareness of systemic sexism in the entertainment industry, Hathaway has advocated for greater professional opportunities for women and criticized Hollywood as not being a place for equality. In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time's Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination. Hathaway has also spoken out against the issues of bullying of gay students, discrimination toward transgender children and white supremacy.

Quotations: "A man told me that for a woman, I was very opinionated. I said, ‘for a man you’re kind of ignorant’."

"I gave up my struggle with perfection a long time ago. That is a concept I don't find very interesting anymore. Everyone just wants to look good in the photographs. I think that is where some of the pressure comes from. Be happy. Be yourself, the day is about a lot more. If designers want to dress me then I am at the larger end of the Hollywood scale so they have to be fine with that. And I think what some designers do is if a dress doesn't fit you because it's been fitted to a size zero model they will remake the dress for you."

"In Hollywood, you have to be careful if you go above a six, then you're considered fat. I'm considered to be, I hope, an actress, and you can get away with a couple of extra pounds if you are trading on your talent instead of your sex appeal. I don't have time to be tortured about my weight."

"Films are letting me get older, which is really nice because there was always this fear of what happens when I stop being a teenager. But for everyone else, it was kind of a sharp left."

Membership

Since 2009 Anne Hathaway is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Membership in the Academy is by invitation only. The invitation comes from the Board of Governors. Membership eligibility may be achieved by earning a competitive Oscar nomination, or by the sponsorship of two current Academy members from the same branch to which the candidate seeks admission.

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  Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , United States

  2009

Personality

In early 2007, Hathaway spoke of her experiences with depression during her teenage years, saying that she eventually overcame the disorder without medication. In 2008, she began smoking after a stressful summer and the end of her relationship with Follieri. She credited quitting smoking for the subsequent decline in her stress level and returned to being vegetarian. Although Hathaway became a vegan in early 2012, she quit while filming Interstellar in August 2014.

Physical Characteristics: Hathaway's sex appeal was picked up by several media outlets; FHM, People, AskMen, Maxim, Empire, and Entertainment Weekly have included her in their yearly lists of sexiest women. In 2011, Los Angeles Times Magazine listed her as one of the 50 Most Beautiful Women in Film. Elsworth calls her "the hottest young actress in Hollywood". Hathaway disagreed, insisting that she has a "good girl" image and no sex appeal. She refused to undergo Botox, saying that she is comfortable in her own skin.

Quotes from others about the person

• "A massive talent, and a really brilliant and sometimes confusing human. She’s one of the most adventurous people I’ve ever met... When I first met her, and even now, even knowing her for a long time, Anne is somebody who would just not really want to get into the party - she is the life of the party and the person who will jump off the cliff first. She really is! I love contradictions in people, she happens to be that. I think she’s probably one of the most talented actresses of our generation." - Jake Gyllenhaal

Interests

• Music, fashion

• Politicians

  Barack Obama

• Writers

  Ayn Rand, Frances Hodgson Burnett

• Sport & Clubs

  Football

Connections

In 2008, Anne Hathaway began dating the actor and businessman Adam Shulman. They married on September 29, 2012, in Big Sur, California in an interfaith Christian and Jewish service. In November 2015, they announced that they were expecting their first child and on March 24, 2016, Hathaway gave birth to their son, Jonathan Rosebanks Shulman. Prior to Shulman, Hathaway dated Italian real estate developer Raffaello Follieri in 2004. The couple split in June of 2008 after law officials accused Follieri of swindling investors out of millions and falsely claiming that the Vatican appointed him to manage its financial affairs.

Father:

Gerald Hathaway

Mother:

Kate McCauley Hathaway

Anne Hathaway was first bitten by the acting bug at the age of six when she watched her mother perform the part of Fantine in a stage production of Les Miserables. Twenty-five years later, Anne would perform the part of Fantine in Tom Hooper's film version of Les Miserables, for which she won an astounding thirty-five awards worldwide and was nominated for another seventeen.

Spouse:

Adam Shulman

Brother:

Michael Hathaway

Brother:

Thomas Hathaway

Son:

Jonathan Rosebanks Shulman

former partner:

Raffaello Follieri

Friend:

Hugh Jackman

Friend:

Emily Blunt

colleague:

Meryl Streep

Friend:

Jacob Gyllenhaal

References

• Anne Hathaway Takes readers through Anne Hathaway's rise to become an award-winning actress; discusses life and career highlights from birth to present day.