INTERVIEW: Anne Hathaway - The Agent Wears Prada?

Anne Hathaway is the 25-year-old star of the new action-comedy Get Smart. In the film, which also stars Steve Carell, she plays the elegant and kick-ass Agent 99, who pairs up with the hapless Maxwell Smart to battle an evil organisation bend on destruction. Having started her career with the very girly movie The Princess Diaries, this is yet another progression for the actress who recently diversified her CV with roles in Havoc and Brokeback Mountain.

A ballroom scene proved a tough challenge for Hathaway, despite previous experience in dancing. “I’m one of those people who studies ballet for 12 years and you can’t tell!” she laughs, “Or someone who takes a foreign language all through high school and at the end can only speak a bit of it, that’s kind of the equivalent of the dancer I am.” Strutting her stuff was the least of her problems, however, as another one of the film’s scenes proved more perilous than all the high-flying stunts she did. “There are a few scenes where I have to drive a scooter, with Steve on my back”, she explains, “and I think the most perilous scenes for Steve was when I was driving that scooter because I’m apparently awful! In rehearsal I almost killed several people and on the day, after we shot it, Steve made me promise I’d never do it again. Which I haven’t!”

The film incorporated a lot of improvisational comedy, due to Steve Carell’s background. Hathaway admits being a little intimidated by this new approach, but quickly learned a winning formula for working with her co-star. “I just thought, ‘don’t worry about keeping up with him, you’re certainly not going to be able to surpass him in terms of improv, just stay out of his way’” she says, “apparently that was the thing that set me apart from the other actresses (at the audition), and why I got the part.”

Hathaway takes on a role made iconic in the U.S. by Barbara Feldman, and whilst the interpretation was her own, she admits to a couple of nods to her predecessor. “I guess the most overt reference I made to Barbara Feldman was that in one scene, I wear a wig that is reminiscent of her original haircut” she explains, “I was also grateful to inherit her Chanel bag addiction (laughs), that wasn’t too painful!”

Finally, one of the biggest obstacles for the actress to get over was meeting Carell for the first time, as she is an avid fan of him and his series The Office. “How did I handle meeting Steve? I think I just embarrassed myself all the time!” she laughs, “I would just come up to him and just gush!”