Anne Hathaway recalls missing out on roles over "how toxic my identity had become online"

Public opinion is a fickle mistress; at this point, we all near-universally agree that it was foolish to hate on Anne Hathaway simply because her theater kid energy was too strong (or, as Hathaway herself jokes, she has “the personality of a vegan”). Yet the Hathaway Hate did happen, and it affected not only the actor’s emotional wellbeing but her career as well. In a new profile for Vanity Fair, she says, “a lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online.”

Luckily, Hathaway “had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of.” The Idea Of You star doesn’t know if Nolan was aware of the hate and consciously “backing” her when he brought her on Interstellar, “but it had that effect,” she says. “And my career did not lose momentum the way it could have if he hadn’t backed me.”

Nevertheless, “Humiliation is such a rough thing to go through,” she tells the outlet. “The key is to not let it close you down. You have to stay bold, and it can be hard because you’re like, ‘If I stay safe, if I hug the middle, if I don’t draw too much attention to myself, it won’t hurt.’ But if you want to do that, don’t be an actor. You’re a tightrope walker. You’re a daredevil. You’re asking people to invest their time and their money and their attention and their care into you. So you have to give them something worth all of those things. And if it’s not costing you anything, what are you really offering?”

Hathaway has continued to be herself, which means she’s deeply sincere sometimes to the point of being corny, but The Internet likes that now! Not that she would know, because “I actually don’t have a relationship with myself online,” she reveals. Still, she has powerful advice to any young person dealing with online bullying, something she knows intimately: “I want to hug them, make them tea and tell them to live as long and as well as they can. That there is an excellent chance that the longer they live, the smaller this moment will feel. That I wish them a life a million times more fascinating than this terrible moment.”