From hosting the Oscars to winning it, Anne Hathaway’s dramatic career is filled with interesting choices and countless magazine covers. The wide eyed American beauty plays Jules Ostin, the founder of a fashion based e-commerce company in The Intern, the new comedy by Nancy Meyers. Her co-star is none other than the Hollywood legend Robert De Niro, and both of them tease the rom-com conventions with a wink.
In this exclusive interview, the Hollywood diva tells us all about the film and more.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your impressions of some of the issues that Nancy has woven into the film?
ANNE HATHAWAY: Well, I think one of the things that Nancy has done with this movie, and throughout her career, is find things that we relate to via humour, via motion, and just throughout our lives. She usually has a knack for getting there first and making observations. In this case in particular, I think she’s really got her finger on the pulse with the observations she’s making about generational humor, and has gotten there, I think, before a lot of other people.
I just love that it’s a movie that I feel like I can go to see with any of my friends. I have friends who are twenty years old and I have friends who are eighty-three years old. And I can go see The Intern with any of them. I’d love to see this movie with my parents, and I don’t know that we’ve had a movie like that in a long time – one that can appeal to everyone and one that, whatever age they are, they can find humour in it.
– Anne Hathaway, Actor
Q: There’s a sense that it’s lonely at the top for Jules in the film. Is this something that you see particularly in successful women, wherever they are in society?
ANNE HATHAWAY: I was thinking, ‘I don’t know how to answer that.’ That never occurred to me. I thought it was not because of a gender issue, but just because Jules is a private person. I think she’s so dedicated to her company that she dreads the idea that anything in her personal life could impact her ability to do her job and keep the company going. And she doesn’t really have anyone to confide in. Then she meets Ben, and their friendship develops organically and she winds up opening up to him and taking his advice, because she really, really respects him, and because it’s sound, excellent advice. And, it happens organically, so I just thought she was more isolated just because of her position. One of the things that I love about the film is that Jules has so much heart and she builds an incredible structure. It has bones, but there’s no connective tissue in it and nobody at the company knows how to build connective tissue. That’s where Ben comes in, and he kind of figures out how to get everybody to connect to each other.
Nancy made amazing observations about how old school meets the new world and each is made better because of the other. I just love that observation in this day and age, when we have all the tools for communication at our disposal, we’re using them in such a way that sometimes doesn’t take full advantage of them. Or they’re taking full advantage of them, but it’s not as effective as having a one-on-one conversation.
– Anne Hathaway, Actor
Q: Did making this film give you any extra insight into the intern experience?
ANNE HATHAWAY: I don’t have an intern, but I was on a photo shoot recently and I was greeted at the top of the day when I arrived, by an intern, and I think because of our movie, I went out of my way to pay her a little extra attention – ask her questions about who she was, why she was doing this, where she wanted to go.
Q: Anne, what about your thoughts on working with Nancy?
ANNE HATHAWAY: Well, if you look at Nancy, you see this tiny, adorable woman with awesome hair. And, at least at first glance, I had no idea the tenacious, uncompromising, inexhaustible powerhouse that she is. I’m so lucky that I got to work with her on this. In terms of a collaboration, it’s true. I admired her so much, and even more now, after having made a movie with her. It’s beyond. When we started, we saw the character in two different ways. I wanted her to be wearing her stress more on her sleeve, whereas Nancy wanted Jules to have it a little bit more together. And I had this moment where I was thinking, ‘Okay, we see it in different ways. Am I going to feel uncomfortable if I’m not following my instincts?’ Then I realized, ‘Who knows a Nancy Meyers character better than Nancy Meyers? These characters are beloved by her. Trust her.’ It became this wonderful exercise in being guided through a character, which is very new for me. So I felt like it was a true collaboration.
Nancy is the funniest person I’ve ever met. I think she’s probably the smartest person in any room she’s ever been in. And I imagine, having been a woman in this industry for the last 30 years, it’s not easy being the smartest, funniest person in the room and being a woman, but she’s handled it with tremendous grace.
– Anne Hathaway, Actor
Q: Can you talk about how your character enhances or changes the lives of others, and also how would you say that this film speaks perhaps differently to different generations of moviegoers?
ANNE HATHAWAY: It took me a long time to crack Jules, because I kept looking for her deep, dark secret, and it turns out she’s just a really wonderful person on the inside. That’s actually the secret of her strength; that’s the thing that makes her a great boss – she’s a deeply decent and nice person. She has everything she needs to navigate this moment, except space and a compassionate ear. And that’s what Ben brings into her life – a tremendous amount of compassion. I don’t know if it’s a generational thing or what, but I feel like there’s a lot of judgment in the world, particularly when people are in a more visible position like Jules would be as the CEO of a startup and her business has grown so quickly. And Ben doesn’t judge her. He just observes her and opens her and gives her a safe space, full of compassion and understanding. It’s a simple thing, but it’s not something we see very often in our world.
There’s a joke that unfortunately got cut from the movie, but it was my favourite. It’s a scene where a character is over at Ben’s house and they’re talking, and he puts his beer on the coffee table. Ben looks down and says, ‘Why would you put your beer next to the coaster?’ I just feel like my generation laughs because we’re really bad about using coasters, and Boomers laugh because it’s a legit question. That’s an example, I think, of how so many of the jokes work both ways. They’re so satisfying.
– Anne Hathaway, Actor
Q: For the actors, your dynamic in the film is so intriguing. How did you develop this dynamic?
ANNE HATHAWAY: Bob (Robert De Niro) and I did some extreme bonding at the Century 21 mall. We went shopping… No. We didn’t do anything special. But that’s a funny thing. I just trusted everything was going to be okay. Bob’s an easy guy to get along with. He is, as Nancy said, incredibly Zen and calm and approachable. I couldn’t talk around him for the first three weeks – I just felt like an idiot, everything I said. And once I calmed down about that, I just trusted the words. It didn’t matter how I felt, because Jules feels comfortable around Ben and I just trusted that that was going to carry us. And Ben feels comfortable around Jules. And Nancy was going to guide us, and it worked. Also, I had a lot of film history on my side. Bob’s good at having chemistry with people. So I assumed that as long as I didn’t mess it up, we’d be okay.
Q: What, if anything, did you learn about yourselves in making this film and the process?
ANNE HATHAWAY: I actually had a wonderful time making this movie, and I think it yielded a more relaxed performance and I’m really proud of the work that we all did up there and what we created. It turns out that you can make a movie without having like nonstop sleepless nights.
(The writer is a journalist and a screenwriter who believes in the insanity of words, in print or otherwise. Follow him on Twitter: @RanjibMazumder)
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