Anne Hathaway

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born on November 12, 1982, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, and was raised in Millburn, New Jersey, after her family relocated there when she was six years old. She is of Irish, English, German, and French descent. Her father, Gerald, is a labor attorney, and her mother, Kate, née McCauley, is a former actress who performed in the first national tour of Les Misérables as Fantine. Hathaway has an older brother, Michael, and a younger brother, Thomas. She attended Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and Wyoming Elementary School in Millburn before graduating from Millburn High School, where she played soccer and appeared in productions including Once Upon a Mattress, in which she played Winnifred. She subsequently performed in Jane Eyre and Gigi at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse. Hathaway studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1993 and became the first teenager admitted into the Barrow Group Theater Company's acting program. She later studied as an English major and political science minor at Vassar College before transferring to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

Between 1998 and 1999, Hathaway sang soprano with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and performed in plays at Seton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange, New Jersey. Three days after her Carnegie Hall performance, she was cast in the Fox television series Get Real, in which she played teenager Meghan Green alongside Jon Tenney, Debrah Farentino, and Jesse Eisenberg. The series ran from 1999 to 2000. She made her New York City stage debut in February 2002 in the City Center Encores! concert production of Carnival!, playing Lili, an optimistic orphan who falls in love with a magician. Critics praised her performance, with Charles Isherwood of Variety calling her the highlight of the production. She won a Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Female for the role.

Hathaway made her film debut in the Disney comedy The Princess Diaries in 2001, portraying Mia Thermopolis, a teenager who discovers she is heir to the throne of the fictional Kingdom of Genovia. Director Garry Marshall cast her after his granddaughters identified her as having the best princess hair, having initially considered Liv Tyler for the role. The film grossed $165 million worldwide, and People magazine named Hathaway one of its breakthrough stars of 2001. She also starred that year alongside Christopher Gorham in The Other Side of Heaven. After voicing the English-language version of the character Haru Yoshioka in The Cat Returns in 2002 and appearing in Nicholas Nickleby that same year, she starred in the fantasy romantic comedy Ella Enchanted in 2004. Her transition to more mature roles came with the 2005 drama Brokeback Mountain.

In 2005, Hathaway appeared on Broadway, with her credits including Children and Art. The following year, she starred in the comedy-drama The Devil Wears Prada, playing an assistant to a fashion magazine editor, which became her biggest commercial success to that point. Her performance in the 2008 drama Rachel Getting Married, in which she played a recovering addict, earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. That same year she appeared in the comedy Get Smart. Further commercial successes followed with Bride Wars in 2009, Alice in Wonderland, Valentine's Day, and Love & Other Drugs in 2010.

In 2012, Hathaway starred as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, her highest-grossing film, and played Fantine, a prostitute dying of tuberculosis, in the musical Les Misérables. The latter role earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her subsequent film work includes Interstellar in 2014, The Intern in 2015, Ocean's 8 in 2018, The Hustle in 2019, and The Idea of You in 2024. She also appeared in the miniseries WeCrashed in 2022. Hathaway won a Primetime Emmy Award for a guest voice role on The Simpsons. Her films have collectively grossed over $6.8 billion worldwide, and she appeared on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2009. She was ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses in 2015. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Beyond her performance career, Hathaway serves as a board member of the Lollipop Theatre Network, an organization that brings films to children in hospitals, and advocates for gender equality in her role as a UN Women goodwill ambassador.