The Devil Wears Prada 2 cast would rather you bore someone else with unrealistic body standards.
In fact, Meryl Streep revealed that after she and Anne Hathaway were struck by how “alarmingly thin” the models were at Milan Fashion Week, her costar went out of her way to ensure their film included more realistic body standards. “I thought that all had been addressed years ago,” Meryl admitted in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar profiling Anne published March 25. “Annie clocked it too. And she made a beeline to the producers about it.” And the three-time Oscar winner didn’t hold back expressing her praise for how the Les Misérables star jumped into action. As Meryl put it, “Securing promises that the models in the show that we were putting together for our film would not be so skeletal! She’s a stand-up girl.” But Anne isn’t just trying to combat beauty taboos onscreen. Indeed, she’s been open about her experience aging as a woman in Hollywood.
“I think that very often, conversations about aging presume that the first part of life is the happiest and the most fulfilling, and I don’t necessarily think that’s true,” Anne-who shares sons Jonathan, 10, and Jack, 6, with her husband Adam Shulman-told the publication. “I wasn’t expecting to find another gear at 40.”
But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t face her own insecurities from time to time. “Some days you look in the mirror and you’re just like, ‘Not bad.’ And some days you look in the mirror and you’re like, ‘What?’ And I was having a ‘What?’ day,” Anne recalled. “And you know how you have your aspirational swimsuit that you keep around, just in case you have a good day? And then you have your swimsuit that’s got you no matter what? I accidentally packed the aspirational swimsuit. Which I then had to wear on a ‘What?’ day.”
For the Princess Diaries alum, it was important to own the moment and the swimsuit. “So, I’m ready to have this great day with my family,” she added. “And I am going to be in front of strangers and people have phones. And all of the things. But my family is waiting for me. And I looked and I just went, ‘What?’ And then I looked again and I said, ‘You are 43.’ And looking at a 43-year-old body, I was like, ‘Nice.’ When I was expecting to see something that I am not, I felt insecure. But when I actually looked at what it actually is, I was okay with it.”
But ultimately, Anne is focused on embracing who she is and the body she’s in at this stage of her life, noting, “I think you realize that worry should be reserved for the really big stuff.