To her, partying just isn’t in vogue
Anne Hathaway is growing up fast.
The 23-year-old actress, who got her big break as a klutzy teen in “The Princess Diaries” opposite legend Julie Andrews, has graduated to more serious roles.
She was a feisty cowgirl – and even appeared topless – in last year’s “Brokeback Mountain,” and stars alongside another acting luminary, Meryl Streep, in the new “The Devil Wears Prada.”
In “Devil,” based on Lauren Weisberger‘s best-selling book, Hathaway plays the beleaguered assistant to the icy, demanding editor (Streep) of a Vogue-like fashion magazine.
She says the movie is a “statement piece” about being a young woman in the work force and what it’s like to “learn to make decisions as an adult.”
Q: Have you ever had a job as an assistant?
A: I’ve honestly been really lucky. My only jobs have been babysitting and acting.
Q: Did you ever dream you’d work with Meryl Streep?
A: Well, of course I dreamed, but you also dream about being president – the likelihood is slim. She is just divine. As a human being, she has basically accomplished everything that I want to do. … It’s not that she just gets inside the character, she’s just absolutely at the center of all of her choices, of the truth of the character. And as an artist, that’s what you dream of.
Q: What do you do when you’re not acting?
A: I’m a pretty boring person. I have a dog that I love, and a boyfriend that I love, and friends that I love, and a family that I love. I’m just trying to spend as much time with them as I can. I love reading. … This is just really gonna send you screaming for the hills: my passion is interior decorating. I’m usually at antique fairs and walking around furniture stores in Manhattan or kind of refashioning furniture. My goal for the next ten years is to get into carpentry, because I want to learn how to make my own furniture.
Q: You seem to avoid the hard-partying young-star lifestyle. How do you stay out of trouble and the tabloids?
A: I really don’t drink, I don’t do drugs. I feel like right now I’ve been given so many opportunities I don’t want to mess it up with those things. I think I was raised in a solidly upper-middle class family who had really strong values and excess was not one of the things that my family put up with. And there’s something wildy decadent about the young-star lifestyle, and I just don’t really see the point. I got my partying out of my system in college.
The birthday bunch
Actor Ron Silver (“West Wing”) is 60. Actor/writer Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Seinfeld”) is 59. Model/actress Jerry Hall is 50. Actress Yancy Butler (“Witchblade”) is 36. Singer Michelle Branch is 23. Actress Ashley Tisdale (“High School Musical”) is 21. Actress Lindsay Lohan is 20.