Anne Hathaway Biography

Solidly established her career as a professional actress despite her young age, Anne Hathaway certainly has soared to be one of the most celebrated stars of her generation. Taking little concern about commercial success, she has put her whole heart into acting and perhaps it was the major factor that enabled her to maintain the accomplishment she has achieved. "I love learning about new parts of myself through characters, and getting lost in people and learning how to breathe differently because all of a sudden you're this different person," so she explained. With her remarkable talent and skills she has polished through a series of enactments in theatres, she surely has the potentiality to rise as a high-profile actress in Hollywood film industry.

The only daughter in the family, she was born with the name Anne Jacqueline Hathaway on November 12, 1982, in Brooklyn, New York to Gerard Hathaway who works as a lawyer, and Kate McCauley, a professional stage actress. Growing up in New Jersey alongside her two brothers, this dark-haired girl obviously inherited her mother's love for acting as she had been involved in some stage productions at such a young age. During her teens, she even became the first adolescent to be accepted in the prestigious Manhattan-based acting workshop, The Barrow Group, while also compiled a resume of theatrical experience through her performances in "Gigi", "Jane Eyre", "Life on Earth", and "Once Upon a Mattress" which were all held by Paper Mill Playhouse.

Originally intended to develop an acting career at Broadway, Anne found out that she could not fit into any roles due to her growing height and innocent look so that she was not appropriate to portray either child or adult characters. She then turned her attention to screen productions and soon appeared in Fox's TV series of "Get Real" (1999) which unfortunately had to end its run after one season. Unaffected by the disappointing result, this alumna of Millburn High School took time to attend Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York by the year 2000, majoring in English while also taking Women's Studies as her minor subject. However, Anne did not have to wait long enough to land another role for she quickly was included in the cast of "The Other Side of Heaven" (2001).

Looking for another opportunity, she afterwards joined an audition for Disney's "The Princess Diaries" (2001) which was adapted from Meg Cabot's novel of the same title. To her embarrassment, she fell of a chair right in front of the film's director, Garry Marshall, who instantly felt that she was the perfect choice to portray the lead character, a clumsy high school girl named Mia Thermopolis. Determined to show that Marshall's decision to sign her was not wrong at all, Anne not only displayed a stunning comedic enactment, but also built a good chemistry with Julie Andrews who acted as her aristocratic grandmother. Beyond everyone's expectation, this family/comedy flick surprisingly turned to be one of the highest grossing movies of that year, scoring more than 108 million U.S. dollar.

The tremendous success of "The Princess Diaries" unmistakably catapulted Anne to widespread recognition while at the same time led her to be nominated for Breakthrough Female Performance at MTV Movie Awards and Best Actress - Comedy at Teen Choice Awards, both held in 2002. With this growing popularity, her career satisfyingly ran smoothly and steadily as she went on filming "Nicholas Nickleby" (2002), "Ella Enchanted" (2004), and "Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement" (2004). Realizing that she was in the brink of becoming a typecast actress, Anne made a great turn by 2005 when she joined the big screen production of "Havoc" in which she underwent several nude scenes. From this point, she continued to explore more challenging roles as seen in "Brokeback Mountain" (2005), "The Devil Wears Prada" (2006), and "Becoming Jane" (2007).

More drastic turn was taken by Anne when she decided to take part in Jonathan Demme-directed "Dancing with Shiva" (2008) to portray an ex-model who has been in and out of rehab for ten years. However, the year also refreshingly found her going lighter in "Get Smart", an action comedy based on popular TV sitcom of the same name in 1960s, in the meantime witnessing her initial foray to thriller genre through Columbia Pictures' "Passengers" where she plays a grief counselor helping six plane crash survivors.

Back to year 2005, the period also turned out to be a joyous period in Anne's love life as she has found the right guy to whom she could give her heart genuinely. Spotted going to the premiere of "Brokeback Mountain" with this sweetheart of hers named Raffaello Follieri, a real estate developer, in early December, she openly expressed her excitement of their togetherness. "We're pretty laid back people. We love to travel and eat and spend time with our dogs," she said happily when talking about their romance.