Anne Hathaway : Finding New Purpose & Acting Out WeWork’s Real-Life Drama #WSJ
The Academy Award–winning actor opens up about motherhood and her new role starring opposite Jared Leto and executive-producing ‘WeCrashed,’ Apple TV+’s new series on the inner workings of WeWork
from WSJ.
On when she knew she wanted to act:
“I remember seeing that there were kids onstage, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world I just wanted to know why I couldn’t be up there. And it was never a conscious thought, ‘Oh, I want to do that.’ For me it was, ‘When do I get to do that?’”
On what she’d do if her sons (Jonathan, who is almost 6, and Jack, 2) with her husband, Adam Shulman, wanted to act:
“I would probably take the same tack that my parents did with me, which is: You have all the time in the world to be a professional actor; you can only be a child once. So I would encourage them to study, to go to classes, to read,” she says, “but I would strongly discourage them from starting too young. I think that they’ll be in a position where they’ll be able to go to college and figure out where they want to go from there.”
On how being a mother has changed her for the better:
“I didn’t feel fully landed and fully here until I was a mom,” she says. “It’s not like I was lacking integrity, but it made me want to be completely, on every level, true to my word. And that meant stopping any nonsense that I had going on inside myself. And it’s little breaks that you give yourself sometimes when you know that you’re not being your best self.”
On waiting until her children are older before doing Broadway:
“Your kids are only whatever age they are, once,” she says. She is the kind of mom who’s there for bedtime. “And there’s a lot of really awesome musicals [for] women in their 50s, so…. There’s Woman of the Year, there’s Mame.” I mention Sunset Boulevard, and she nods with great enthusiasm and does her best diva voice to say, “I am going to eat every last bit of scenery and then pick my teeth with the splinters.”
On wishing she could be more comfortable in interviews:
“I have people that I can absolutely speak freely with, but I have to say, I wish I was more comfortable doing it,” she says. “I see [actors] who are so great at—they never seem like they’re watching their words at all, but they’re also never giving anything away. I think with me, it’s still a little uncomfortable.” She found what she calls her “chosen family” at Vassar College and makes friends gradually. “I do take my time getting to know, to establish trust. And then, once trust is established, I’m a Scorpio, I’m all in.”
On turning 40 this year:
“I have a really tight-knit group of friends from college, and we all realized that we were just going to be celebrating each other’s birthday every other week,” she says. “So we decided that we’re all going to go someplace together and have a joint 40th birthday party.”
