Some girls have all the luck. The morning after the New York City premiere of Anne Hathaway's new movie, The Devil Wears Prada, Anne sits curled up on the couch of her hotel room, looking anything but exhausted. Even though her dark brown hair hangs unstyled past her shoulders and her porcelain skin appears untouched by cosmetics, the 23-year-old looks gorgeous in a flowing black sundress with pink and green flowers.
The rest of us would probably be nursing champagne-induced hangovers and dabbing concealer under our eyes, but Anne's secret is that three weeks earlier she gave up the casual amount she used to drink. Not for any particular reason, she says, it's just something she has wanted to do — a seemingly mature decision for a girl whose cohorts make clubbing seem like a full-time job.
But her choice not to drink seems right in step with where she says she is in her life. In many ways, she seems exactly like any other 20-something struggling to make the transition into adulthood, trying to define who she is and where she stands.
Much of this transition also comes across in The Devil Wears Prada. Anne — or Annie as her friends call her — plays Andy Sachs, a fresh-out-of-college girl from the Midwest who moves to New York City and winds up working as the assistant to the boss-from-hell, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Miranda is the ruthless editrix at Runway, a Vogue-esque fashion magazine, and Andy wears skirts that look like they're from the Gap circa 1994. In the movie, Andy must choose between getting ahead in the magazine world and sacrificing her values and relationships.
"There's a really striking universal truth in Andy's experience that I'm sure you recognize," Anne says. "It's learning how to be an adult, learning how to make choices as an adult, learning what the difference between sacrifice and regret is."
Besides relating to her character, Anne took the role to work alongside her idol, Meryl Streep. "As a woman, and I don't usually talk about this, [Meryl] has absolutely done everything that I want to do," Anne says. "Everything that I have ever hoped to accomplish, she has done and done better than anyone I have ever seen."
Meryl is quick to compliment Anne as well, saying her incredible beauty will be one of her biggest obstacles in the acting world. But it is obvious after spending just a few minutes with The Princess Diaries star that Anne has the brains to match her looks.
She recognizes the importance of a college education, and after spending several semesters at Vassar, transferred to New York University to pursue English and women's studies. Whether she's recommending her favorite book, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, or discussing her thoughts on the mediocrity of society, Anne has clearly been gripped by higher education.
"College is such a unique time because you're learning a little bit how to be an adult," she says. "You're learning how to take care of yourself without parental influence, and you're exposed to so many great minds. I feel like I didn't even know how to think until I got to college."
But how does a college coed — who also happens to be a Hollywood star — stay out of the tabloid spotlight? In part, she's driven by her career. She has been guided by some incredible costars and mentors, she says, such as Meryl, Julie Andrews (The Princess Diaries) and Maggie Smith (Becoming Jane), who have shown her just how little fame matters.
"Acting is hard enough," Anne explains. "It's hard enough to have longevity. When you stamp yourself into people's minds, [then] they see you leaving a club looking disheveled, it's hard for them to then buy you as the President of the United States."
Besides, she admits, club hotspots are not her thing. "I dated this guy many years ago who owned a nightclub, and I just had to go there every night. I wanted to shoot myself in the head it was so boring," she groans. "All these big, massive, straight clubs where people come and grind on the floor, and they are licking each other before they know each other's name. I'm not really at that place in my life."
Don't get her wrong, she still goes out; she just prefers a low-key night with friends or a going to a gay club. "To be perfectly honest," she says, "All my friends are gay men, so I wind up going out to gay clubs anyway, which have the best music, the best dancers in the city."
Plus, she's been dating real estate developer Raffaello Follieri for more than two years. "It's actually 2 years and some-odd months, but I don't want to say like 2 years, 3 months, 11 days — I don't want to be that person," she laughs.
Her idea of a perfect date? "Being laid back, putting on your favorite pair of flip-flops, grabbing a pizza and going to see an unexpectedly great film," she says. "Just walking and talking, when the weather is right… You know those dates when everything just comes to together. And it's nothing that you could even put your finger on. You're not doing anything all that special. There's just a mood."
Much like her character learns in the end of The Devil Wears Prada, Anne knows that "if you can say at the end of your life that you don't have any regrets, you've made some great decisions."
Those sound like the words of someone who has made the jump to adulthood.
