PLEASURE WORLD

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Early on, Anne Hathaway’s core religious values in Catholicism were guiding her toward a future filled with religious faith rather than Hollywood fame. Though her mother, Kate McCauley, was an actress, and Anne Hathaway enjoyed playing dress-up and imagining herself as various creative characters, her first career ambition was to become a nun. This career path changed abruptly at 15 when she realized that her religious background would put her at odds with her brother, who was gay. Based on that, Anne Hathaway chose acting instead, and movie audiences would come to be all the better for it.

At New Jersey’s Millburn High School, Anne Hathaway got her acting feet wet in various school productions, including Once Upon a Mattress, which saw her nominated for a Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Award in the category of Best Performance by a High School Actress. She also enjoyed the added bonus of training at New York’s highly respected Barrow Group Theater Company. Anne Hathaway’s acting highs were matched by the lows of a difficult battle with depression. Through her own strength, she eventually conquered the self-loathing and anxiety that came from her darker moments, and pushed forward to begin the career that she would come to love.

Anne Hathaway stars in the princess diaries and brokeback mountain

Mere days after performing with her high school chorus at Carnegie Hall, Anne Hathaway was cast in the new FOX series, Get Real, in 1999. The series was a bust and she went on to enroll at New York University, but an audition came her way for 2001′s The Princess Diaries. According to director Garry Marshall, she wiped out during the audition and immediately got the part. Anne Hathaway remembers the story differently, but irregardless, she won the role of an unpopular girl who learns that she is, in fact, royalty. The plot connected well with its royalty-seeking tween audience, making the Disney film a hit and spawning an equally-successful sequel in 2004.

While Anne Hathaway wasn’t outwardly disappointed that the Princess Diaries films — and to a lesser degree 2004′s Ella Enchanted — had branded her as an actress for family movies, she wanted to show that she could do more. As such, she began to play totally against type, first as a drug and sex-chasing teen in the steamy Havoc, which never saw a theatrical release but picked up a significant following for obvious reasons (read: nudity) on DVD. Anne Hathaway had more success in the serious role of a struggling wife to cowboy Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain, which was instrumental in getting her cast opposite her screen hero, Meryl Streep, in The Devil Wears Prada. While the role of assistant to a fashion boss from hell didn’t win her any goodwill from Vogue editor Anna Wintour (who inspired the film), the rest of Hollywood, including Meryl Streep, was impressed with her skills.

Anne Hathaway stars in get smart and rachel getting married

After gamely playing Jane Austen in 2007′s Becoming Jane, Anne Hathaway bought a ticket aboard the Hollywood remake train for the big-screen reboot of the beloved TV series, Get Smart. As Agent 99, the no-nonsense special agent who is paired up with the bumbling Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), she prevented world destruction and got to give The Rock a boot to the head. The film was a well-received summer blockbuster and by the fall, all eyes were on Anne Hathaway’s next movie, Rachel Getting Married. As an emotionally-fractured recovering alcoholic in town for her sister’s wedding, Anne Hathaway showed a side of her acting that was honest and gutsy. The critical kudos for her performance were followed by Hathaway’s first Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

After battling with Kate Hudson in the 2009 wedding comedy, Bride Wars, Anne Hathaway is now preparing a slate of films touching on wild imagination, Hallmark holidays and Viagra. In 2010, she will enter the weird world of Tim Burton to play The White Queen to Johnny Depp’s The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. Also on her list of upcoming efforts is a costarring role in the Viagra-themed drama, Love and Other Drugs, and a reunion with her Princess Diaries director, Gary Marshall, for Valentine’s Day, which features the ensemble of Ashton Kutcher, Patrick Dempsey, Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Garner.

Filmography

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