Anne Hathaway Has Reflected On That Time Everyone Hated Her Guts
"I knew millennials were dumb when they said they hated Anne Hathaway."
Anne Hathaway has piped up about the ‘hatred’ she says she received ten years ago, a phenomenon that became so pervasive that it earned the hashtag #Hathahate.
Around ten years ago, Hathaway was everywhere — playing key roles in the likes of Love And Other Drugs, The Dark Knight Rises, and Les Misérables. And it was after Hathaway bagged a best supporting Oscar for her role in the famous French musical that she attracted some serious ire.
Opening her acceptance speech with the words “it came true,” members of the media and the public immediately started to find the actor annoying,
“She always seems like she’s performing, and her favourite act is this overstated humility and graciousness,” one blogger was quoted saying all the way back in 2013. “I’ve known theatre kids my whole life. I was a theater kid my whole life. She is the epitome of the bad kind of theatre kid.”
A decade on, Hathaway reflected on that time at the 29th Annual ELLE Women in Hollywood celebration. “Ten years ago, I was given an opportunity to look at the language of hatred from a new perspective,” Hathaway said. “For context — this was a language I had employed with myself since I was seven. And when your self-inflicted pain is suddenly somehow amplified back at you at, say, the full volume of the internet … It’s a thing.”
She added that the experience made her realise she had “no desire to have anything to do with this line of energy” and she no longer wished to “create art” from that place.
“I would no longer hold space for it, live in fear of it, nor speak its language for any reason. To anyone. Including myself.”
“There is a difference between existence and behaviour,” the actor added. “You can judge behaviour. You can forgive behaviour, or not. But you do not have the right to judge – and especially not hate – someone for existing. And if you do, you’re not where it’s at.”
“Hate seems to me to be the opposite of life; in soil that harsh, nothing can grow properly, if at all. I want to say: Be happy for women. Period. Especially be happy for high-achieving women. Like, it’s not that hard.”
Read the full transcript of Anne Hathaway’s speech here.