Anne Hathaway’s Devil Wears Prada Character Is Now Serving Confidence

Twenty years ago, The Devil Wears Prada delivered one of cinema’s buzziest sartorial makeovers. (It simply doesn’t get more iconic than: “Are you wearing the...” “The Chanel boots? Yeah, I am.”) But according to Anne Hathaway, she and her character, Andy Sachs, have since undergone an even more meaningful transformation behind the scenes.

“I think we’re both more confident,” Hathaway told People at the London premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2 on April 22, reflecting on how the women have grown over the last two decades.

As she continued, “I think that 20 years ago Andy Sachs was really worried about getting it right, and she really wanted to please her boss. And now, I think that she wants to be herself. And I relate to that.”

Similarly, Hathaway recently told The New York Times that growing up changed the way she operates. “I used to be a very fear-based person,” she said in an interview published on April 23. “I used to have an overcharged electric-fence protection system, and I’m not so interested in that anymore.” Rather, she explained: “Something happened when I turned 40, and I just realized I was living my life like it was a dress rehearsal, and that actually, it was showtime.”

Showtime indeed! On screen in The Devil Wears Prada 2 (out May 1), Andy is a features editor brought in to help save Runway in the magazine’s time of crisis. And Hathaway is booked and busy IRL, too, not only promoting two projects at this very moment (she plays a pop star in Mother Mary) but surely gearing up for The Odyssey, The End of Oak Street, and Verity, all out later this year.

Then of course, there’s the highly anticipated threequel, The Princess Diaries 3, which is still in development. (“The intention is to make Princess Diaries hopefully next,” she told Entertainment Weekly.)

If simply reading all of that made you a little tired... you’re not alone! “That kind of a pace is unsustainable, particularly now. I have young children. I just thought of the last three years as an anomaly,” Hathaway told the Times. But for now, she’s soaking it all in. “I’m actually pretty delighted that somebody’s asked me to come back and basically do the equivalent of a stadium tour,” she said.