Anne Hathaway Appreciation

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway

12 November 1982 (Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA)

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

Today is 30th birthday of the lovely and talented Anne Hathaway. I have only recently became a fan of hers, after seeing her incredible work in The Dark Knight Rises, but she appeared in many memorable films and even went on to achieve her well deserved Academy Award nomination for her work in Rachel Getting Married.

Anne was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Gerald Thomas Hathaway, is a lawyer, and her mother, Kathleen Ann is an actress who inspired Hathaway to follow in her footsteps. The family moved to Millburn, New Jersey, when she was six years old. Hathaway has an older brother, Michael, and a younger brother, Thomas. She is of mostly Irish and French ancestry, with distant Native American and German roots.

She was raised Catholic with what she considered "really strong values," and has stated she wanted to be a nun during her childhood. However, she decided against it at the age of 15, after learning her brother, Michael, was gay; she felt she could not be part of a religion that condemned her brother's sexual orientation. In 2009, Hathaway described herself as a non-denominational Christian because she had not "found the religion" for her, and later stated that her religious beliefs are "a work in progress."

"There are people who have said that I’m being brave for being openly supportive of gay marriage, gay adoption, basically of gay rights, but with all due respect, I humbly dissent. I’m not being brave; I’m being a decent human being. And I don’t think I should recieve an award for that, or for merely stating what I believe to be true: That love is a human experience, not a political statement."

Hathaway graduated from Millburn High School, where she participated in many school plays; her high school performance as Winnifred in Once Upon a Mattress garnered her a Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Award nomination for Best Performance by a High School Actress. During this time, Hathaway was in plays including Jane Eyre and Gigi at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse. She spent several semesters studying as an English major and Women's Studies minor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York before transferring to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, referring to her college enrollment as one of her best decisions, because she enjoyed being with others who were trying to "grow up."

A soprano, Hathaway performed in 1998 and 1999 with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and has performed in plays at Seton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange, New Jersey. Three days after her 1999 performance at Carnegie Hall, she was cast in the short-lived Fox television series Get Real at the age of 16.
She is a trained stage actress and has stated that she prefers performing on stage to film roles. Her acting style has been compared to those of Judy Garland and Audrey Hepburn. She cites Garland as one of her favorite actresses and Meryl Streep as her idol.

Anne is most known from her work in The Princess Dairies and its sequel, The Devil Wears Prada, Alice in Wonderland and most recently The Dark Knight Rises where she completely stole the spotlight from everyone else as Selina Kyle - the iconic Catwoman. I have yet to see a better performance this year and to be completely honest, I don't expect to. This year we will see her in Les Miserables, for which she has been getting considerable amount of Oscar Buzz. It is for this movie that Anne has cut her beautiful, long and dark trademark hair.

On September 29th she married her long time boyfriend Adam Shulman in a Jewish midnight ceremony, wearing a gown designed specifically for her by Valentino, before 100 guests in Big Sur, California. Anne is donating a portion of the sales from her wedding pictures to nonprofits advocating for marriage for same-sex couples and also to the American Cancer Society, St. Jude Children's Research and The Girl Effect.

Few years back she hosted Academy Awards with James Franco - the show was a disaster but Anne and her beautiful dresses were the only saving grace. Recently Anne has hosted Saturday Night Live, which was hilarious - especially Homeland spoof where she parodied Claire Danes's crying face among other things.

In addition to her lovely attitude and beautiful smile I adore Anne's style - she always looks so carefree and romantic.

5 favorite films:

Brokeback Mountain

The Dark Knight Rises

The Devil Wears Prada

Bride Wars

Becoming Jane

5 favorite performances:

The Dark Knight Rises

Rachel Getting Married

Brokeback Mountain

Alice in Wonderland

Love and Other Drugs

Y15 fun facts:

• Goes by the name Annie with all of her friends.
• Has the same name as William Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway.
• She was a vegetarian for most of her life, but she has recently ceased this.
• In July 2006 she spent a week in Nicaragua helping vaccinate kids there against Hepatitis A. She called the experience "..an eye opener" for her.
• Favorite actresses are Cate Blanchett, Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Pfeiffer
• She befriended Emily Blunt on the set of The Devil Wears Prada. They are fast friends now, Emily calls Anne 'her rock'.
• Favorite movies are Elizabeth (1998), Stand by Me (1986), Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), Pretty Woman (1990) and Cidade de Deus (2002).
• Favorite actors are Joaquin Phoenix and Ralph Fiennes.
• Turned down the lead role in Knocked Up (2007).
• Accidentally fell off of her chair during her audition for the role of the klutzy princess in The Princess Diaries (2001). She was hired on the spot.
• Friends with Jake Gyllenhaal and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
• Campaigned for the role of Stephanie Necrophuros in Nine (2009), but Kate Hudson was given the part instead.
• Christian Bale said that his daughter cared more about Anne Hathaway’s dog, a chocolate Labrador named Esmeralda, than the filming on the set of The Dark Knight Rises - “She would be down all the time [and spent time with Anne Hathaway] - she loved her dog,”
• Anne Hathaway’s mother was the understudy for Fantine on the American tour when she was growing up. The first day of filming of Les Miserables, Anne actually wore her mother’s Les Mis cast jacket from all those years ago.
• Even though Anne is playing Catwoman in the new Batman movie, she is actually allergic to cats.

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