Anne Hathaway is one of those movie stars who seem as normal as is possible when you’re a movie star. She comes across as down-to-earth, good craic and lacking in diva overtones. If this is the product of PR, I don’t really care to be honest; she’s a cutie.

Anne was born in Brooklyn but grew up in New Jersey with her two brothers and her lawyer Dad and actress mother. The whole family was Catholic with what she considered “really strong values,” she even thought about becoming a nun at one stage. That all changed when she was 15 and her brother came out to the family.

I disagree with a couple of the stances of the Catholic Church. My older brother is gay and it’s important for me to be able to love him completely and freely and it’s important for me to spread beliefs in the world that are not going to limit people in their love. I can’t support a religion that doesn’t support my brother. Why should I support an organisation that has a limited view of my beloved brother?

During this time, Anne was appearing in school plays and winning local acting awards as well as performing at Carnegie Hall in the 1998 and 1999 with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus. Not just a pretty face and an excellent actress with an open mind, but a great singer too.

In 1999, aged just 17, Anne began acting in front of a camera on the short-loved TV show Get Real. When the show ended she took the first role to change her life; Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries. The story of a normal girl who finds out that she’s the princess to a small European state, the Disney film was a huge hit. Her brand of bright-eyed girl next door was employed the following year in another Disney feel-good film, Ella Enchanted. Anne was making money but decided to go to college and studied English and Women’s Studies at Vassar College before transferring to NYU.

College is such a unique time because you’re learning a little bit how to be an adult. You’re learning how to take care of yourself without parental influence, and you’re exposed to so many great minds. I feel like I didn’t even know how to think until I got to college

After spending some time at college, Anne decided to tackle her film career head-on and hired her bother (the quare one) to be her assistant. Her first job was to get rid of the Disney image and show she could act in an adult role. She went to the extreme and took the part of Allison in Havoc, a film which required her to get her kit off and get with erotic. She denies this was to turn the tables on her image but sorry, Anne, I don’t believe ya.

I spent a lot of time in the early part of my career staying within the same realm with a lot of my film choices. I don’t regret that, considering that my first movie was … a very popular film. So, all of a sudden, I had opportunities, I had attention, I had buzz and heat and all those things that people tell you you are supposed to work for and I didn’t know if I could act.

After Havoc she landed the second of her career-changing roles, as Lureen Newsome in Brokeback Mountain,a film she says she is, “more proud of than anything I have created”. The world opened its eyes and saw a young actress who could be serious and carry a scene. The following year, came the third of those career-defining films, when in 2006, Anne got to act with her heroine, Meryl Streep.

She is just divine. As a human being, she has basically accomplished everything that I want to do … It’s not that she just gets inside the character, she’s just absolutely at the center of all of her choices, of the truth of the character.

The Devil Wears Prada was a unique experience for Anne. She not only got to work with one of the industry’s greats but earned a best mate in Emily Blunt who calls Anne “my rock”. The two may have played characters who hated each other but behind the scenes they bonded on the contractual requirement that they stay thin.

I basically stuck with fruit, vegetables and fish. I wouldn’t recommend that. Emily and I would clutch at each other and cry because we were so hungry.

This part of the process stuck with Anne and she has remained outspoken about the dangers of Hollywood’s obsession with skinny actresses.

I’ll be honest with you, it really, really, really annoys me, the image that’s put out there for women. These tiny, tiny bodies, with absolutely no fat at all on them. It’s unhealthy, plain and simple, and there are only a handful of women in the world who are naturally like that. It makes me sick.

‘I’ve had directors say to me, ‘You’re the best actress for the role, but you’ve put on weight recently.’ If people can’t understand you’ve put on five pounds, I don’t want to deal with them. In Hollywood you have to be careful if you go above a six, then you’re considered fat. I’m considered to be, I hope, an actress, and you can get away with a couple of extra pounds if you are trading on your talent instead of your sex appeal. I don’t have time to be tortured about my weight.

Since The Devil Wears Prada, Anne starred as Jane Austen in Becoming Jane and just lost out on the part of Johanna in Tim Burton’s reworking of Sweeney Todd. She wasn’t too disappointed, though, as she got the part of Kym in Rachel’s Getting Married, and landed an Oscar nomination for her performance, completing her transition to serious lead actress material. Tim Burton didn’t forget her, either, and has cast her as the White Queen in his upcoming remastering of Alice In Wonderland.

During this time she also made the pretty awful Bride Wars, which is worth watching for one scene only.

If things have been chugging along nicely on the professional font, Anne has had it tough where romance is concerned. She tries desperately, and understandably, to keep her private life private but, in 2004 she began a relationship with Italian real estate developer Raffaello Follieri. According to Wikipedia:

During their relationship, Hathaway took part in the development of the charitable Follieri Foundation, serving as a financial donor as well as a member of the foundation’s board of directors until 2007. The organisation came under investigation in early June 2008 by the IRS, reportedly for failing to file tax papers required from non-profit organizations.

Follieri was arrested in June 2008 on fraud charges for allegedly fleecing investors out of millions of dollars in a scheme involving purchasing Catholic Church properties in the U.S. for redevelopment. Court papers state that Hathaway was an unwitting beneficiary of the stolen money, which had in large part paid for Follieri’s opulent lifestyle of jet-setting, shopping sprees, and fine dining. It was reported that the FBI had confiscated Hathaway’s private journals from Follieri’s New York City apartment as part of their ongoing investigation into Follieri’s activities; however, Hathaway was never implicated in any wrongdoing from the events.

She said afterwards that she left Follieri as soon as she realised something was up and “spent a week in shock” after the allegations came out. Since then, Anne is usually seen in public with either of her parents or brothers and not with any romantic interest.

On screen, as well as Alice in Wonderland, Anne will opposite her Brokeback Mountain star Jake Gyllenhaal, in Love and Other Drugs. The one I’m excited about though, is Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, which she will star in as the one and only Judy.

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