Anne Hathaway has an inspiring story about The Devil Wears Prada role

Where there is a will, there is a way. American actress Anne Hathaway is an epitome for the saying as the 38-year-old American actress achieved a film, though she was not the choice of the filmmakers.

The actress dropped the reveal at the start of 2021, saying that she was the studio’s ninth choice to play Andrea “Andy” Sachs in “The Devil Wears Prada.”

Canadian actress Rachel McAdams was Fox’s first choice to star opposite Meryl Streep in the 2006 comedy, according to Entertainment Weekly. Other actresses in the run for the role were Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson, and Kirsten Dunst. None of them lobbied to be cast. Instead, the studio pursued them. But, Anne Hathaway was the only one who campaigned for the role.

“I remember [Anne Hathaway] sitting on my sofa in my office and explaining why she wanted to do this, why she had to play this role, and giving script notes about the third act,” former Fox 2000 president Elizabeth Gabler said while talking to the magazine.

“When I look back on it, it wasn’t exactly what we ended up doing, but her sensibilities were completely aligned with what we ended up doing…Annie never gave up. She never stopped campaigning, calling, she came into [Fox executive] Carla Hacken’s office and wrote in her zen garden, ‘Hire me.'”

Anne Hathaway’s campaign got fruitful as the filmmaking team behind “The Devil Wears Prada” supported her to play the role. But, studios baulked.

“We started negotiating with Annie to make a deal, and that didn’t go well with the studio…We offered it to Rachel McAdams three times. The studio was determined to have her, and she was determined not to do it” said director David Frankel.

The turning point in the story came when 71-year-old veteran actress Meryl saw Ang Lee’s acclaimed “Brokeback Mountain” with Anne in a crucial supporting role as Lureen Newsome Twist, the wife of Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist.

Impressed with the Anne Hathaway role, Meryl Streep called up the then-chairman and chief executive officer of Fox for the actress.

“Meryl was eager to make the movie, and she said ‘let me meet with her,'” Frankel said. “‘Brokeback Mountain’ was about to come out. Annie had a wonderful, small role in that. And Meryl watched that scene from the movie, she met with her and called up Tom Rothman at Fox and said, ‘Yeah, this girl’s great, and I think we’ll work well together.'”

Check out the reunion of The Devil Wears Prada starcast: