It’s a common theme in Hollywood: women tend to be torn down by a bunch of obsessive internet users who have nothing else to do with their time. We’ve seen it with just about every famous woman out there, and even though Anne Hathaway is acting royalty, she was not immune to the scorching hate in the 2010s.
Hathaway became a common internet punchline about a decade ago right after she became a household name. Sure, she had earned herself an Oscar and pulled off an impressive heist with Rihanna, but Hathaway was subjected to what became dubbed “Hathahate.” Her role in the panned live-action Alice in Wonderland surely didn’t help either.
But the hate was all based on nothing. Hathaway recently explained how all of the backlash affected her budding career. “A lot of people wouldn’t give me roles, because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online,” she told Vanity Fair.
Of course, she still acted in a number of successful films after her Oscar win, but there was one director who took a bigger chance on her. “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,” she said, referring to Interstellar (not her catsuit-wearing stint in The Dark Knight Rises).
She continued, “I don’t know if he knew that he was backing me at the time, but it had that effect. And my career did not lose momentum the way it could have if he hadn’t backed me,” she explained. This is not the first time someone has credited Nolan for taking a chance on them.
Hathaway reflected on how the ordeal shaped her. “Humiliation is such a rough thing to go through. The key is to not let it close you down. 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.”
Luckily, Hathaway has been picking up some solid projects over the years, including her role as Woman Tearing Up The Dance Floor and the upcoming movie inspired by One Direction Fanfic. If that doesn’t show confidence in her career, what does?
