Nearly two decades since The Devil Wears Prada hit screens and changed how a generation of millennial women approached workplace ambition and success, Anne Hathaway is reflecting on the mindset that defined both the film and her own career.
Ahead of the film’s highly anticipated sequel, which premieres on May 1, Hathaway discusses how her own approach to success has softened.
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"I’ve always felt defined by my work ethic. I never want to pull up short," Hathaway says, in reference to the internal pressure that shaped her meteoric rise in Hollywood.
The comment mirrors the arc of Andy Sachs, the green, wide-eyed assistant who unintentionally found herself at the epicentre of the fashion world, struggling to keep up with the almost impossible expectations of her demanding boss, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). When The Devil Wears Prada debuted in 2006, its portrayal of hustle culture was widely viewed as a rite of passage for young professionals, glamourised as a route to the top. For Hathaway, now in her 40s, that framing no longer feels as straightforward. Reflecting on her life today, she explained: "I decided it wasn’t fair for me to move through my life as a stressed person."
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Adding to this, she explained how she doesn’t want her children, friends, colleagues or strangers to be impacted by her feelings of stress and has therefore ‘done a lot of work to figure out how to metabolise differently, so that way I don’t feel overwhelmed by all that’s coming at me.’
As a mother of two young boys (aged 6 and 10), with her husband Adam Shulman, Hathaway is now focused on finding peace and happiness where she can, and also stated that she credits sobriety in helping her get there. "I think that very often, conversations about ageing presume that the first part of life is the happiest and the most fulfilling, and I don't necessarily think that's true," she explained. "I wasn't expecting to find another gear at 40."
This story was first seen on ELLE UK.