A New Era

“It is such a sweet feeling to know that you’re kind of woven into someone’s life. I can’t describe the honor of knowing that I’m involved in the moments where people need comfort,” she says. “It makes me really excited that my journey as a performer has connected with people. I love [when] projects have a life beyond their initial release.”

The ‘Hathaissance’ red-carpet looks that ignited a new phase in her career were the result of a partnership with stylist Erin Walsh, who she calls “one of my great loves”. The energy and joy Hathaway has brought to the fashion world is infectious; a four-second video of her dancing to Lady Marmalade at a Valentino Garavani after-party in January went viral for a reason. So, unsurprisingly to most of us, brands like Bulgari and Shiseido have lined up to tap in to her pulling power. She even took over the hosting honors at the recent CFDA Awards, after Sarah Jessica Parker had to drop out a few days before. Hathaway’s sartorial influence is undeniable. But, still, she was shocked when Versace asked her to serve as the face of its Versace Icons campaign.

“I did not know I was on their radar,” she says. “It never occurred to me that it was at the level where they would want to associate [with] me so closely.”

Donatella Versace brought Hathaway as her date to the 2023 Met Gala honoring the late Karl Lagerfeld, to which the actor wore a gown that seamlessly combined the Italian house’s signatures – including giant safety pins and up-to-there leg slits – with the tweed and camellia details closely associated with Lagerfeld’s work.

Her Icons campaign, by comparison, focused on “chic wearability”. It’s an idea that hugely appeals to Hathaway at this point in her life. As much fun as she’s having with her style publicly, at home, she’s all about finding that one perfect item – a roomy tote, a pair of jeans – that she can reach for and know will work. This is one of the ways she separates her public persona from her private life, a distinction that she says is crucial to her.

With more than two decades of experience under her belt, Hathaway has learnt to engage publicly in an authentic way, while still keeping some parts of herself back. Referencing our interview, she tells me, “I am myself right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m my whole self right now.

As a result, and as she’s come into this next chapter of her career, she has found she worries less about what others might think or what failure might await. Instead, she is feeling “open” and “curious”, allowing her to enter an exhilarating space as an artist.

There’s something freeing about that feeling in an industry known to be mercurial at best. The goal now is to “ultramarathon” her career. “I’ve always been really upfront about being an ambitious person,” she says. “I have goals, I have dreams; they don’t look much different than they did when I was [younger], but I’m still pursuing them.”

Having just entered her forties, Hathaway works with the same team she’s had since she was 16 years old. “There’s really good seasoning on the pan in a lot of the relationships in my life, and I feel like I’m still growing,” she says. But, as established as she is, nothing is taken for granted. More than once, she mentions how grateful she is to “be invited back to the table” and have the chance to take new risks.

“When I started out [in this industry] as a child, I was warned that my career would fall off a cliff at the age of 35, which is something I know a lot of women face,” Hathaway says. “The thing that has evolved during [that time] is that more women are having careers deeper into their lives, which I think is fantastic. Obviously, it doesn’t mean we should have a ticker tape parade – someone said this to me the other day: ‘There’s so much to be proud of and there’s so much to fix.’”

For Hathaway, she’s currently in a good place, thriving with a beautiful family and a career that is constantly exciting and pushing her. Next month, she stars in the adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s Booker-nominated novel Eileen, playing a brash, condescending prison psychologist in a 1960s penitentiary for boys, careless of the adoration she inspires in a young colleague. It’s a scene-stealing performance.

It hasn’t always been an easy road, though. At the 2022 Elle Women in Hollywood Awards, she opened up about the backlash she received after her 2013 Oscar win for Les Misérables, in which the public accused her of being too earnest about her work; about wanting her success too openly. It would’ve been easy to harden herself against the world, but she has refused to give up her capacity for openness and sincerity. They come naturally to her.

“Being funny feels riskier than being sincere, because I think my sense of humor is different to what people think my sense of humor is going to be; I think it’s easily misunderstood, and sharper,” she says. “Part of the reason I feel an extra pressure to make sure I’m very clear about what I say, and how I say it, is because I trust the sincerity.

“Also, the world has so many spiky things in it – do I really need to throw a barb out there? I don’t think so,” she adds. “I would much rather put my sweetness out, and lead with that.”

Sharing one final piece of advice that she follows for centering herself – “Be the best friend you ever had” – Hathaway shrugs on a worn-in leather jacket and rushes off to fulfil school-pickup duties, taking a bit of her fashionable public life into her cozy private one.

Eileen is in cinemas from December 1

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