Up-and-Comers

Beyond the fairy tale

With a "Princess Diaries" sequel on the way and "Ella Enchanted" out now, a suddenly grown-up Anne Hathaway talks about looking for love and exploring her darker side.
By Kevin Maynard

Once upon a time there lived a pretty girl named Anne Hathaway. She was a typical teenager in Millburn, N.J., albeit with a surprise hit movie -- "The Princess Diaries" -- under her belt that raked in more than $100 million and won her the adulation of little girls everywhere.

Now 21, the auburn-haired actress stars in another "Cinderella" story, the just-out "Ella Enchanted," an adaptation of Gail Carson Levine's beloved young-adult novel, and she's shooting "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement," due out this summer. But at this moment, at a Hollywood coffee shop, Hathaway's life is less than an idyllic fairy tale. Someone sideswiped her golden coach (actually an Audi) en route to this interview. "Driving in L.A.!" she exclaims, dressed casually in a blue wool cowl-neck sweater and black pants. "You know what? It's the thing that keeps me from wanting to settle here. I love New York, I love the subway, and examples like this today are yet another reason it's not for me."

Cinderella never had to navigate the 405 Freeway, but then again she also never had to grow up, which is exactly what Hathaway has done since "PD1." Although she says she's in the acting business for the long haul ("If anyone tells you they're not, they're lying"), she misses life at Vassar College. She's majoring in English but has managed to complete only three semesters between film shoots since she started in 2001.

"It's killing me," she says, "because it's my friends' senior year. I get a little maudlin on the set when I'm not having fun."

It's the adult Hathaway who is taking on new career challenges. She plays a rich teen who gets mixed up with L.A.'s gang culture in "Havoc," an R-rated drama due out later this year. Hathaway's character, Allison, who acts out by using drugs and being sexually promiscuous, is a far cry from the storybook heroines that have made her famous. And that's precisely the point. "I mean, obviously I have to do some things for me," she says. "But I accept that something I did is very much a part of the canon now of what 10-year-old girls enjoy."

Hathaway's youthful sweetness gives way when she describes her experience making Havoc. "It smacked me out of a stagnant place. It was a catalyst. I don't know if it was the role or the time of my life. But I was able to expel years of repressed pain, and it was very cleansing," she says, adding, "I don't want to dwell on it."

It's a small moment, but a telling one: This generally sunny young actress has a darker side. Yet she's quick to point out she's never been the perfect good girl she presented herself as during her first burst of fame.

"I thought, 'This is what people like. This is what I should give to them,' " she says. "I guess a lot of it was a fear of rejection, too, because you don't want people to not like you. It's the whole popularity thing in high school. Everything goes back to that."

Working so much hasn't left Hathaway a lot of time to find a Prince Charming. She's single and on the market. "I've dated some, yeah. But compared to, say, Paris Hilton, no! I've had a couple relationships. I just haven't had, like, an all-intensive multi-year one." (These days, her frequent date to events and premieres such as the Miramax Golden Globes after-party is her friend of five years, "That '70s Show" star Topher Grace.) And she's definitely someone who believes in the fairy-tale ideal of love. "One of the main reasons women love 'The Lord of the Rings' is that it gives us hope," she says, "because Aragon, he's a poet-slash-warrior! OK? Do you know how deep this is? And he fought for all the right reasons!"

When asked how his "Princess Diaries" discovery has changed, director Garry Marshall credits Hathaway with maturing and keeping it real. "What I was very impressed by is that she has the same entourage: Meredith, her cousin. That's it. No crowds. And I haven't worked with somebody who's come from such a solid family since Ron Howard." Hathaway is very close with her family, including her brothers -- one older and one younger. Her lawyer dad, Jerry Hathaway, 50, made a cameo in the first "Princess Diaries," and her mother, Kate McCauley, 50, a former stage actress, appears as a choir director in the sequel.

"She's at that point in her career where she wants to do a lot of different things," Marshall says. "She's only 21, so you never know, but I think she's going to be around for a very long time. And I think after ["Princess Diaries 2"], she's done princessing."

Kevin Maynard lives in L.A., where he writes about film and entertainment.