Anne Hathaway feels “defined by her work ethic” rather than her talent.
Anne Hathaway feels ‘defined’ by her work ethic
The 43-year-old actress has recalled realising early on that nothing was going to be “handed” to her in terms of a career in entertainment, and she has always strived to put as much effort as she possibly can into every project.
She told Harper’s Bazaar magazine: “I think I just knew from a young age that although I’m really lucky in so many ways and grew up with certain privileges, there wasn’t, like, this big life that was just going to be handed to me.
“I’ve always just felt defined by my work ethic, because my skill set is what it is and I have to work with what I have, but how hard I can work is something that I can control.
“And so I never want to pull up short and feel like I could have worked harder. If I know that I’m working hard, I can live with who I am.”
As a child, the Princess Diaries star took dance classes, but she found it more of a struggle than acting or singing.
She recalled: “I couldn’t quite figure out why there was no advancement.
“At a certain point, the dancers jump, right? And I was going all the time, and I couldn’t jump in both senses of the word.”
However, Anne was able to accept her strengths and weaknesses.
She added: “I just remember having that conversation with myself and being like, ‘Okay, well, I don’t think you’ll ever be a dancer, and your singing’s fine, but I don’t know that you’re ever going to be a star vocalist.’
“So, I ruled out ‘pop star’ pretty early, but I found that acting kept opening to me. I wasn’t concerned that I couldn’t keep up with Beyoncé, because she is Beyoncé.”
In her upcoming film Mother Mary, she found herself having to embody a Beyonce-esque pop star, and push herself beyond her previous expectations.
She explained: “It was really, really humbling to have to deal with the limitations that my body had always had, that I’d accepted as part of my identity, but now they were no longer acceptable.”
She took dance lessons for the film, and while she thinks some people could have achieved it “in a shorter amount of time” or without training “as hard”, Anne knew she had to leave everything “on the floor”.
She added: “So at the end of it, I couldn’t say, ‘Well, yeah, I wish I’d done this better. I wish I’d done that better.’ But I know I literally couldn’t have worked harder.”
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