Anne Hathaway Was Told Her Hollywood Career Would End at Age 35

Even Anne Hathaway has been a victim of sexist ageism in Hollywood. In a new interview, the Oscar winner recalls being told her career would end by the time she hit her mid-30s.

In a cover story for Net-a-Porter’s digital title Porter, out today, the actor said that when she started out in the industry as a child, she “was warned that my career would fall off a cliff at the age of 35, which is something I know a lot of women face.”

But, she said, “[t]he thing that has evolved during [that time] is that more women are having careers deeper into their lives, which I think is fantastic.”

Of course, Hollywood still has a long way to go, to be entirely and truly inclusive. “Obviously, it doesn’t mean we should have a ticker-tape parade—someone said this to me the other day: ‘There’s so much to be proud of and there’s so much to fix,’” Hathaway added.

During her decades-long career, Hathaway, now 41, has starred in over 50 films, many which have become box office hits, including The Devil Wears Prada, The Intern, The Princess Diaries, The Dark Knight Rises, and Les Misérables, for which she won an Oscar. And she has a lot more coming.

The actor, who is also a mom to sons Jonathan, seven, and Jack, four, with husband Adam Shulman, told the magazine she has “always been really up-front about being an ambitious person.” She added, “I have goals, I have dreams; they don’t look much different than they did when I was [younger], but I’m still pursuing them.”

Currently, Hathaway is filming Mother Mary, a pop melodrama directed by The Green Knight’s David Lowery, which was allowed to keep filming through the SAG-AFTRA strike, which has since ended.

Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper's Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets. 

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