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She hit the big time as a wide-eyed assistant in The Devil Wears Prada. Now, as Anne prepares to step into Jane Austen’s shoes,

this famous good girl explains why she’s badder than you think.

Text by Jenna Gabrial Gallagher Photographs by Peter Lindbergh

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A nne Hathaway didn’t get to keep her wardrobe from The Devil Wears Prada, but she does have a souvenir: the faux pos-terior used to pad her

slim frame for her “Andy, size 6” scenes. “I have every good intention to have it framed,” she laughs, “and have a little plaque under-neath it that says, andy’s ass.”

In the 2006 film, Anne’s star-making turn as the beleaguered assistant to Meryl Streep’s withering fashion-magazine editor, Miranda Priestly, struck a chord with everyone who’s ever held an entry-level job—in particular, I tell Anne, as we tuck away in a quiet corner of Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont, with this interviewer, who, at the time the movie was being shot, was working in the same position for Bazaar’s editor in chief, Glenda Bailey.

After we exchange a high five of solidarity

(though she’s a leading lady, the 24-year-old New Jersey native exudes the easy camarade-rie of a friend), my first question is, has the experience informed how she treats her own assistant? “A lot of behavior displayed in the movie was recognizably ridiculous,” she says, flashing her trademark ear-to-ear grin and glancing at me for agreement. (At the risk of biting the hand that commissions me, I quickly nod.) “What I would say is, I rely on every assistant I’ve had. I mean, it’s not so bad as, you know, I need them to wipe my nose for me, but to have someone take care of things is such a luxury.”

Currently, the position is being held by her older brother, Michael, which makes it a bit tough for Anne to play the diva boss. “He’s a writer,” she explains. “It’s understandable you wouldn’t want to be someone’s assistant for-ever; you want to realize your own dreams.”

Like many editorial assistants, Anne’s

Andy dreamed of becoming a writer, as, coin-cidentally, does the character she plays in her next film, Becoming Jane, a romantically ideal-ized account of Jane Austen’s early life, costar-ring James McAvoy as her Irish suitor. Anne, a fan of the author’s, whom history has cast as a spinsterish plain Jane, dived into the role with gusto, portraying a heaving-bosomed heroine to “show that there was blood run-ning through her veins … not tea!”

In real life, the man who sets Anne’s heart racing is her boyfriend of three years, Raf-faello Follieri, 29, an Italian businessman with close ties to the Vatican. Remembering how even Andy’s seemingly sainted boy-friend in The Devil Wears Prada got fed up when she missed his birthday, I wonder how she balances a job “a million girls would kill for” with keeping the romance alive.

“The last two projects I did, I was working six-day weeks, and they shot in Ireland

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and Vancouver respectively, so he traveled out almost every weekend to be with me,” Anne explains. Currently, she’s shooting Get Smart (a film adaptation of the modish ’60s television series in which she plays Agent 99 to Steve Carell’s Maxwell Smart) and ducking home to New York on weekends. “I’m being a very good Catholic girlfriend on this one!” she says, laughing.

W hen they’re not jetting across continents to see each other, the coup l e de vote a good

portion of their energy to charity. It was with the Follieri Foundation that Anne traveled to Nicaragua last year—at the exact moment that The Devil Wears Prada was becoming a box-office phenomenon—to inoculate children against hepatitis A. The two are currently planning a trip to Honduras, with the ultimate goal of vaccinating every child under five in that country.

“My boyfriend is incredible in a lot of ways, but when it comes to his charity… One of the most untouted aphrodisiacs in the world is charity work. Seriously, you want a girl to be impressed, vaccinate some kids, build a house.” Careful not to contribute to what Scarlett Johansson has called “idiot wind” (celebrities jumping on charity band-wagons to up their Q rating), she quickly adds with an impish laugh, “You just might get something out of it, too.”

Follieri isn’t the only Italian man in Anne’s life. She is enthusiastic about her relation-ship with designer Valentino, whom she met when he did a cameo in The Devil Wears Prada. “We just got along really well, so that’s why I wore him to the Oscars,” she explains of her white lace dress with a dra-matic black bow. “You know, he’s retiring, and it’s one of his last collections, and I really, really, really wanted to be a billboard for Valentino that night.”

Today, though, Anne is lithe and casual in Earnest Sewn jeans, a white See by Chloé top, and a slouchy slate-colored cardigan by Mason. She’s accessorized with Lanvin flats (“One of the producers of The Devil Wears Prada turned me on to them; I’m kind of flat obsessed, which is a shame, because I really don’t have the body for them”) and a $17 pair of sunglasses that she picked up at a drugstore

because they remind her of the ones Gwen Stefani wears on the cover of her album The Sweet Escape. “I love her style,” Anne says, smiling. “If I could see clothes the way she sees clothes, I’d be very, very happy.”

Anne credits her work with Devil costume designer Patricia Field for the evolution of her fashion sense. “I feel I know how clothes go together now. Before, I was so desperate to have a style and a look that I would wear things I didn’t feel comfortable in, that had nothing to do with me.”

While on set, Anne also got fashion tips from costar Emily Blunt, whom she calls “fabulous in every single way” (and with whom she half-jokingly says she’d love to do a sequel: “Andy and Emily on a road trip through Europe, trying to find Miranda the perfect leather skirt”). But, she muses, if she could have anyone’s style, it would be Selma Blair’s. “My friends and I call her Saint Selma. She’s, as we all say, very fierce.”

Anne became pretty fierce herself while preparing for her role in Get Smart. “I have to be very, very strong, so I’m working out like a madwoman.” Her rigorous training involves an accelerated course in martial arts: “Basi-cally, anything Jen Garner did in Alias, expect in this film,” she says, making tiny chopping motions in the air. “Lots of kicks, punches,

and dodges … and, oh, yeah, I have muscles now! I’ve never had muscles.”

Anne’s conscientious work ethic comes partly from her strong family ties. Her mother, stage actress Kate McCauley, and her father, attorney Gerald Hathaway, encour-aged her early acting career. She also cites the roster of Hollywood luminaries with whom she’s already worked, including Streep (“a good day on set with Meryl turns into a mas-ter class”) and Ang Lee, who directed her in 2005’s Brokeback Mountain. (“I love Ang. I would be his shoe-shine girl if he wanted.”)

The combination of the two influences, coupled with her very Austenian good sense, has kept Anne’s feet firmly on the ground when other young actresses about town are dancing on tabletops. “My life is moving at a fairly rapid clip, and I don’t need to be push-ing my own envelope,” she explains. “I try to cultivate meaningful moments.” Then she starts to laugh: “Don’t get me wrong. A lot of meaningful moments have happened in nightclubs at 3:00 a.m. … If I had more time, I’d probably have more of them!”

Ever the diplomat, Anne refuses to judge the antics of her contemporaries. “It’s unfor-tunate that comparisons always happen between me and other girls, because I cut loose like everyone else. But when I’m work-ing, I have a very clear priority. I think of going out in terms of ‘How is it going to serve my character?’ If it doesn’t, I don’t do it.”

In fact, with the notable exception of the embittered Lureen Twist in Brokeback Mountain, Anne has built a career of playing characters who, like her, bear striking simi-larities to Austen protagonists: women who do the right thing and eventually get, as Anne’s Jane says in Becoming Jane, “after some trouble, all that they desire.”

As Anne and I part ways, I think about our shared alter ego, Andy, and about life imitating art, whether it’s a preacher’s daughter becoming one of the most influen-tial authors of English literature, a former editorial assistant finally getting to write, or a little girl from New Jersey who grows up to be a megawatt star.

For Anne, it’s all about creating drama. “I think a lot of people would love to get some separation from their lives and spend time seeing things from another person’s perspec-tive,” she notes. “I’m sure other people roll their eyes and think, Whatever, drama queen. But I like it.” n

High drama in gold for night. Marabou coat, $26,000, and dress, $1,850, Bottega Veneta. 877-362-1715. Tights, $65, Wolford. 800-WOLFORD. Sandals, $750, Burberry Prorsum. 800-284-8480. See Where to Buy for details. Hair: Orlando Pita for Orlo Salon; makeup: Pati Dubroff for Dior; manicure: Elle for Barielle; production: Susannah Phillips for North Six; prop styling: Lynn Nigro.

“I rely on every assistant I’ve had. I mean, it’s not so bad as I need them to wipe my nose for me.”

Anne with boyfriend

Raffaello Follieri

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