Anne Hathaway: I No Longer ‘Live in Fear’ of Viral Vitriol 10 Years After ‘Hathahate’
Samantha Bergeson
Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway has no time for residual “Hathahate” almost 10 years after the infamously viral (and unfounded) movement began.
Back in 2013, after Hathaway won the Oscar for “Les Misérables,” her public persona was thrown into question and categorized as “annoying” by critics. Hathaway previously said the experience left her “shocked” and “embarrassed,” eventually leading her to find a new level of self-empowerment and resilience.
“Ten years ago, I was given an opportunity to look at the language of hatred from a new perspective,” Hathaway recently said during her acceptance speech at Elle‘s 29th annual Women in Hollywood event. “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.”
Hathaway continued, “When it happened to me, I realized that this wasn’t it. This wasn’t the spot. When what happened, happened, I realized I had no desire to have anything to do with this line of energy, on any level. I would no longer create art from this 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.”
The “Armageddon Time” actress added, “We don’t have enough time to discuss all the myriad causes of the violent language of hatred, and the imperative need to end it. Because there is a difference between existence and behavior. You can judge behavior. You can forgive behavior 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.”
Hathaway spoke out on the ability to un-learn hate and “re-learn love.”
“Hate seems to me to be the opposite of life; in soil that harsh, nothing can grow properly, if at all,” the “Devil Wears Prada” icon said. “I want to say: Be happy for women. Period. Especially be happy for high-achieving women. Like, it’s not that hard.”
Hathaway exclusively told IndieWire that she got out of her “comfort zone” for James Gray’s “Armageddon Time.”
“He doesn’t let you get away with nonsense for whatever reason, whether you’re insecure as an actor and you kind of feel like, ‘OK, I’ll fill up this moment with stuff.’ He just wants the truth from you,'” Hathaway said of Gray’s directing style. “I wanted to give him everything that I had.”
