Biography of Anne Hathaway

Hathaway graduated from Millburn High School in New Jersey, where she acted in several plays. As a teenager, she was cast in the television series Get Real and made her breakthrough as the protagonist in her debut film, the Disney comedy The Princess Diaries. Hathaway made a transition to adult roles with the 2005 dramas Havoc and Brokeback Mountain. The comedy film The Devil Wears Prada , in which she played an assistant to a fashion magazine editor, was her biggest commercial success to that point. She played a recovering alcoholic in the drama Rachel Getting Married , which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She followed this with roles in the commercially successful romantic films Bride Wars , Valentine's Day , Love & Other Drugs , and the fantasy film Alice in Wonderland.

In 2012, Hathaway starred as Selina Kyle in her highest-grossing film The Dark Knight Rises, the final installment in The Dark Knight trilogy. That year, she also played Fantine, a prostitute dying of tuberculosis, in the musical romantic drama Les Misérables, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She went on to play a scientist in the science fiction film Interstellar, the owner of an online fashion site in the comedy The Intern , and a haughty actress in the heist film Ocean's 8 . Hathaway has also won an Emmy Award for providing her voice in The Simpsons, sung for soundtracks, appeared on stage, and hosted events.

Hathaway supports several charities and causes. She is a board member of the Lollipop Theatre Network, an organization that brings films to sick children in hospitals, and advocates gender equality as a UN Women goodwill ambassador. She is married to businessman Adam Shulman, with whom she has two sons.

The comedy The Princess Diaries and the adventure drama The Other Side of Heaven, both 2001 Disney films, featured Hathaway in lead roles. Based on Meg Cabot's 2000 novel of the same name, the former follows a teenager Mia Thermopolis who discovers that she is the heir to the throne of the fictional Kingdom of Genovia. Hathaway auditioned for the role during a flight layover on the way to New Zealand. Garry Marshall, the film's director, initially considered Liv Tyler for the role, but cast Hathaway after his granddaughters suggested that she had the best "princess" hair. The film became a major commercial success, grossing $165 million worldwide. Many critics praised Hathaway's performance; a BBC critic noted that "Hathaway shines in the title role and generates great chemistry" and The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell found her to be "royalty in the making, a young comic talent with a scramble of features". She earned an MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Female Performance nomination for the role. Hathaway starred with Christopher Gorham in Mitch Davis's The Other Side of Heaven. Inspired by John H. Groberg's memoir In the Eye of the Storm, the film met with mostly negative reviews and was a box-office failure.

Owing to the success of The Princess Diaries, People magazine named Hathaway one of its breakthrough stars of 2001. In February 2002, Hathaway starred in the City Center Encores! concert production of Carnival! in her New York City stage debut. She played Lili, an optimistic orphan who falls in love with a magician. Before rehearsing with the full cast, Hathaway trained with a vocal coach for two weeks. She memorized almost all her lines and songs at the first read-through. Critics generally praised her for holding her own against well-known actors and heralded her as a new star. In a positive review for the musical, Charles Isherwood of Variety called Hathaway the highlight of the show and "remarkably unaffected and winning", praising her convincing performance. She won a Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Female. Later, Hathaway voiced the audiobook release of the first three books in The Princess Diaries novels.

Hathaway portrayed princesses and appeared in family-oriented films over the next three years, subsequently becoming known in mainstream media as a children's role model. After voicing Haru Yoshioka for the English version of The Cat Returns , she starred in Douglas McGrath's comedy-drama Nicholas Nickleby , which opened to positive reviews. However, the film did not enter wide release and failed at the North American box office, totaling less than $4 million in ticket sales. The fantasy romantic comedy film Ella Enchanted , in which Hathaway played the titular character, also performed poorly at the box office. She first read the book on which the film is based when she was 16, and stated that the script was originally much closer to the book, but did not work as a film, and therefore prefers the film the way it became. The film opened to mostly mixed reviews. Hathaway sang three songs on the film's soundtrack, including a duet with singer Jesse McCartney.

In 2003, Hathaway declined the role for Joel Schumacher's The Phantom of the Opera, because the production schedule of the film overlapped with The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Hathaway was initially hesitant and nervous about starring in the sequel, but agreed to it after Marshall convinced her that she was not repeating anything. The film was released in August 2004 to negative reviews, but made $95.1 million against a $40-million budget.

Full name: Anne Hathaway

Born: November 12, 1982

Birthplace: New York City, New York, USA