I keep reading stuff about Les Miserables and how none of the industry people know quite what to expect with it. Like, Lincoln and Argo are the early favorites for all of the awards nominations, but there are some concerns and questions about Les Mis and whether it will go all Chicago and end up winning the Best Picture Oscar and all of that. I think it helps that Les Mis has a good technical “hook” – I’m probably going to take my mom to see it (she’s really jazzed about seeing it), and I’m looking forward to it just because I’m interested in seeing how the “singing live to camera” hook plays out within the film. I’m also looking forward to seeing it just because I like Anne Hathaway and I know she really wants an Oscar for this, and I suspect that she might get it. Annie really does want it, and she’s willing to pull out all of the stops, talking about babies and weddings and diets and weight loss and her transformation and all of that.
Anyway, the first screening of Les Miserables was held a few days ago in NYC, and many of the actors showed up to officially begin their promotional tour. The Hollywood Reporter has a lengthy discussion of what went down and what the first reactions were to the film – overwhelmingly positive, by the way. Reports indicate that everyone was very impressed, and you just get the feeling that everyone is really proud to be involved with this film. THR even says Russell Crowe’s musical theater background comes out in the film, and he’s really, really good too. Anyway, Anne was at the screening and she discussed losing 25 pounds and cutting off all of her hair:
She took the brave step of shaving off her hair to play a diseased waif in the movie adaptation of the musical, Les Misérables. But Anne Hathaway wasn’t too shocked when she looked in the mirror after losing her shoulder length hair because she saw a familiar face – her gay brother!
Speaking at a New York screening of the movie on Friday, Hathaway said: “When I eventually looked in the mirror I just thought I looked like my gay brother.”
It’s not the first time the actress has spoken about her gay older brother Michael. Two years ago she told British GQ that she and her family left the Catholic Church because of its stance on homosexuality after he came out.
Hathaway said: “The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out. Why should I support an organization that has a limited view of my beloved brother?”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Hathaway was so dedicated to playing the role of Fantine in Les Misérables that she shed 25 pounds from her already thin frame. She lost the final 15 pounds by eating just two thin squares of dried oatmeal paste a day.
Hathaway said: “I had to be obsessive about it – the idea was to look near death.”
I always forget that Anne has siblings, and that her brother is gay. If I’m being cynical, I would say that Anne name-checked her gay brother to let the Hollywood establishment (gay people and gay-friendly people) know that she too is one with the gay community. Yeah… I’m a cynic! I wonder how her gay brother feels about being a pawn in his sister’s Oscar campaign?
As for the larger discussions about her hair and what a hardship it was for Anne to chop it all off… well, I’m just glad her hair has grown out of that awkward stage. I actually like it so much more now that the top part has grown out some. Now her hair is much more elegant.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, WENN.
Why didn’t she just say her brother why did it have to be her “gay” brother?
What dose him being gay have to do with her looking like him with short hair?
This. I would have accepted if she said “I look like my younger/older brother”, but the “gay brother” was out of contest in my opinion.
Absolutely. And she accusing the Church of having a limited view of her brother. What a hypocrite.
+2
It’s name dropping her brother’s sexual orientation for extra credit. Anybody else would say “I looked like my older brother”. There is no special hair cut that gay men get which straight men don’t. A hair cut is a hair cut.
I agree. That was just uncalled for. I liked her better before she said it.
Man, she wants that Oscar BADLY. She wants it and it’s so close she can smell it. I so hope the Oscar goes to someone ELSE.
+3. So unnecessary – definitely shows that’s she’s a major try-hard! Until now it was (relatively) possible she wasn’t campaigning hard for this Oscar.
I agree. What a weird comment.
Exactly. Not necessary to say he is gay and no, you are not cynical. I have a gay brother and I refer to him as my brother. It is a definite play on her part and it’s kind of nauseating.
Agree agree agree. I’m already tired of her Oscar campaign and the flippin’ movies hasn’t even come out yet.
+1. But then again, I knew that I would get tired of her. This is like her last go round with trying to win an Oscar. She was insufferable then and she will be even worse this time I suspect.
Why she did not simply say ” I looked like my brother”, I don’t see in what mention her brother’s gender orientation (don’t sure I can say that) is relevant, it is just teasing, and proves a total lack of respect to the private life of this poor man
Yeah!! A normal person would say : I looked like my brother. Who says I looked like my gay brother??
my husband constantly referred to his “gay brother” until i said something to him. he honestly didn’t realize he was doing it.
That first pic of her is so wrong Kaiser hahahaha.
Why did she have to mention her brother is gay?? Couldn’t she just say she looked like her brother? That sounds more natural. There’s just something too obvious about her statement. She’s without a doubt advertising or declaring something.
“I always forget that Anne has siblings, and that her brother is gay. If I’m being cynical, I would say that Anne name-checked her gay brother to let the Hollywood establishment (gay people and gay-friendly people) know that she too is one with the gay community.”
I TOTALLY agree with you. She’s talking about a haircut, her brother’s sexual orientation should be completely irrelevant in that context.
This one is campaining hard for an Oscar. Let’s see if she can top Natalie “Ballerina” Portman though.
It seems so unnecessary to include the fact that her brother’s gay re: comment about her hair.
Am I the only one that doesn’t care about ‘Les Mis’ or… I definitely gave her the side eye at ‘gay brother’ though. Saying she looked like her ‘brother’ is fine, but whatever.
Also, I think she looks great in that black dress! Her hair looks very awesome and chic!
I don’t really care about it either, but I’m not a huge fan of musicals in general. I think the last one that I really enjoyed was Chicago, come to think of it. As for AH and her comment…anything to win that Oscar, I guess?
No, you’re not the only one. Granted, I’m not crazy about musicals, but this one seems especially uninteresting to me — I’d rather read the book (again).
Eve!!! I TOTALLY bought ‘Stuart: A Life Backwards’ for my viewing pleasure. And I bought ‘Lawless’ and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Happy Hardy Holidays to me!!! Le UNF! 😛
My broke ass can’t do the same (with “Stuart”, I mean) :(.
Instead, I have to wait for HBO to air it again. I’m also trying to watch “To the Ends of the Earth” on Youtube (12 parts — takes forever to download but, as I already said, I can’t see it livestream). Cumberbatch is soooo cute in it (yes, I used the word “cute” to describe Cumberbatch).
As an “internet dumb”, that’s the best I can do.
Boo! Everyone should own that Hardy/Cumberbatch gold! Also, I saw an interview with him on YT and he was adorbs with his red/blond hair! And he made the BEST faces!!! lol You should definitely watch it!
I will buy it some day (someday?). Just can’t afford it right now — and since I’ve already seen it, I’ll probably buy another one instead (that are unavailable in video stores here — ha, video store is just a way of speaking, there are only two where I live, most of the video stores here went bankrupt because of piracy/bootleg copies).
You’re talking about that interview where they’re at a park or something, dressed in character? I saw it. It’s super cute!
Nope! I was referring to the interview he did with Alan Carr on ‘Chatty Man’. I FLOVE the face he pulls when talking about people taking pictures of him on their phones while he’s filming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UbudlLhkXs
Ha! Saw that one too — it was right after I realized I had been “cumberbatched” (you know, obsessively googling/youtubing him). He’s delicious in that interview.
@LadyMTL, @Eve The only musicals I’ve liked are Grease, The Sound of Music and The Moulin Rouge.
I love Grease! My other favourites are The Sound of Music (too!) and Sweeney Todd.
Ooh, I totally forgot about Sweeney Todd!!! I love that one too!
You’re not the only one, I feel like this thing has been forced on me since back when T.S. was being floated as a possible Eponine, which seems like eons ago.
Lol I guess we’re all on the same page because I was wondering the same thing. She really could have just said “brother” no need for the gay part.
Question, is her role in this movie big? She’s going for best supporting actress nom? right?is her role big enough for it to be likely.
I wondered the same thing, but I suppose it must be big enough as she’s *really* campaigning for it.
Fantine takes up a good chunk of the first quarter of the musical, and makes a very small appearance near the end (although they may not do that in the film, because it was more of a cast reprise on stage).
Personally I really want Judi Dench to get Best Supporting for Skyfall 🙂
I´d love for Judy Dench to win, but I also want one for Amy Adams. Hilarous Anne thinks she actually has a chance against those.
She didn’t say, “I looked like my brother” because she has more than one brother. As for the descriptor? Eh, it sounds like one of those jokes among the family, whatever. The story about leaving the church is not new and she’s talked about her brother before. Overall this gets a shrug from me.
The haircut does look abit too harsh on her but I have to say she looks fabulous in that black dress and I think the haircut helps the whole look. That’s probably the best I have seen her for awhile.
Why is it so “brave” that Anne cut her hair off for a role. It’s not like other actresses haven’t done it before.. Vanessa Redgrave, Sigourney, Natalie, Demi, Angelina, Cate B and a host of others. And these women were actually pretty bald.
why her cutting her hair is a major accomplishment is just SMH.
I’m starting to dislike her.
Yeah, me too. I think she’s got the stench of desperation about her and that’s really unattractive.
Tired of hearing about how “brave” (or whatever) she was for shaving her head. People w/cancer & other illnesses are brave, not this overrated, over paid actress. Oh, and every time I see a pic of her, I think “jazz hands”.
She took the brave step of cutting her hair? What’s so brave about it? Losing 25 pounds seems more important.
I really like her dog. And I was wondering if the dog was part of the Oscar campaign??? Then I noticed *gasp* The Collar. Bad move, Anne. People are not going to like that. And while I’m not usually one to jump on perceived animal offenses, I will say, I am anti-choke collar. They are too often misused, and it’s too easy to hurt your doggie’s throat.
That’s a no-slip collar, or “limited-choke” as some people call it. I have a dog that is similar in size to this one and he’s very strong. He’s one of the best behaved dogs you’ll meet but he loves to chase rabbits. If one darts by on a walk he can very easily slip out of his collar going backwards. He wears this kind of collar when we going walking so I don’t have to worry about him slipping out of it. They aren’t uncommon. I’d rather keep my dog (and bunnies!) safe.
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with her saying her “gay brother” as opposed to “my brother”. Why she had to differentiate between them is anyone’s guess (as if we’re going to go away and check, and if we see a picture of her hetero brother we’re all gonna be like “Liar, you look nothing like him!”).
Perhaps it’s a nod to her family being all open and for gay rights. It’s not the first time she’s mentioned her gay brother either, this was her accepting an award for something a while back where she mentions it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZuIdQVEVY0
Perhaps she feels it’s pertinent to keep mentioning it as it’s such a heated issue in America, and for people to keep dropping it into conversation is a way to ‘normalize’ it. Or something…?
I much enjoy her comment about losing weight. As in, she lost all that weight to: “look near death”, as opposed to fitting in a size 0 dress.
I quite like her, for me she’s like a non-annoying Keira Knightley.
At first, I thought the qualifier was strange. But, then, I read your comment and I agree that she could have just been been trying to do the gays a solid by reminding people that she has a gay brother, who, as of yet, doesn’t have the federal benefits of marriage. She does have a history of talking him up and is very supportive of gay marriage.
Oscar campaign…as many others already said. It is just stupid to refer “my gay brother”…is this an exclusive haircut of gay people or what? She totally wanted to bring the gay sympathy but in my opinion it sounds way more offensive than nice. I don’t see the appeal of this actress, that in my opinion is completely overrated. She is ok for Disney movies, but apart of that there’s not so much appeal in her. And I agree with everyone that wonders about the greatness of an actress cutting their hair for a role. It’s the same as wondering that a supermodel looks good in slim-fit trousers. Isn’t that their job??
I always remember something about how Lori Petty got the role for Tank Girl because she was the only actress who was fine with shaving her head.
That always bothered me because, regardless of the quality of Tank Girl, surely it’s a job? Surely one’s hair grows back?! And IT’S A JOB!!
I mean, I’ve had some terrible haircuts in my time, and at no point did any of them suddenly gift me with the ability to act.
I am really over this whole ‘look at how dedicated I am, I cut my hair off and lost weight!’ business.
Does nobody realise that 16 or 17 year old (at the time) Sofia Vassilieva shaved her entire head and her eyebrows for her role in My Sister’s Keeper as a cancer patient? I’d like to see how many big-name actresses would do that – apparently Dakota Fanning was supposed to have the role but refused to shave her head so they looked elsewhere.
So, somehow not going full-bald is a big deal, eh?
Because we’ve yet to hear anything about Charlize Theron’s full buzz bald head.
And that’s just this year.
Over the years many actresses have gone balder than Anne and thinner than Anne
And never made a big deal out of it.
Yep. I admire how some of the NFL cheerleaders had their hair buzzed to support the coach, whose daughter has leukemia. About Anne, I love her hair and have mine like it but a little longer. I love how she dresses , usually, and love the 2nd pic. As far as her “gay brother”, well – it’s already been said.
Two Colts cheerleaders went bald to support Chuck Pagano, who has leukaemia (not his daughter). I know this because I am a huge die-hard Colts fan. Almost the entire team went bald, too – more than 30 players on the roster.
Charlize Theron has yet to start promoting her movie and I sure once she dose we’ll hear a lot about her buzz bald head.
Anne is just taking it to another level because she wants that Oscar.
I wasn’t crazy to hear this reference to her “gay” brother, even though she didn’t intend it to be disrespectful.
People, it’s HER brother, I’m sure she knows better than we do if it’s disrespectful of him or not. And my guess is, NOT.
I read no slur in there anywhere. And aren’t we going backward, not forward, if we cannot openly say that a gay person is gay?
Why to categorize a person by their sexual orientation? I would never refer to any of my gay friends as “the gay” even if we openly talk about them being gay or not. They have a name or some other characteristic that I will associate faster to them like their profession per instance. You also wouldn’t say “my straight sister/friend/whatever”. So for me that is going backwards.
Nice that she is open about it (although it sounds a bit pushy the way she puts it: “my beloved” brother), but for someone so worried about it, it would sound a lot nicer to say “my brother *insert name*”.
+1
Posted pretty much the same thing down thread.
If I’m not mistaken she has more than one brother. Again, if he’s ok with her statements, why are you so upset? The point is, it’s not wrong to be gay, so why is it wrong to refer to her gay brother? It’s no more insulting to say that than to say “my tall brother” or “my doctor brother”. Acting like it’s a big deal seems worse than her saying it.
JM, I had a brother who was paralyzed, yet I did not refer to him as “my brother in the wheelchair” when I wanted to differentiate between my three brothers. I used their names. The wheelchair did not define him, just as being gay does not define her brother. It is simply his sexual preference, and is his own business.
Describing by looks is one thing, identifying them by their sexual preference is on a whole other plane.
She’s brave for cutting her hair because regardless of the fact that they can put wigs on her, it’ll limit what parts she can get in the near future.
And it goes without saying that most women are extremely uncomfortable with being bald. Most people in general are uncomfortable being bald, even men. The entertainment industry is basically a looks first, talent second type of business. When you’re a woman with little to no hair, it can be upsetting to basically be told you look horrible by everyone.
I don’t have a problem with her talking about her gay brother. She has two brothers and presumably the straight one doesn’t look as much like her as the gay one.
She might also just want to remind people that she’s down with the gays and I don’t see anything weird or wrong about it.
Many people have more than one brother but they don’t refer to them by their sexual orientation. It’s usually by order of birth (my older brother or my younger brother, the middle brother) or my name (my brother Michael). I’ve never referred to one of my 3 sisters as my straight sister. She mentioned his sexual orientation to get brownie points from liberal Hollywood. It’s campaigning just like the politicians.
p.s. I think her ears are a bit too big for a super short cut, but I love her manicure w/ the black dress.
I’ve noticed since I got my hair really short, I’m not getting “checked out” as often by men…a price I’m willing to pay because I like the cut. But it’s been interesting….
like her too…i don’t see anything wrong with referencing ‘gay’ brother….i’d probably (unconciousely, not intending to) use an adjective like that to describe anyone near me…”my brother the mad scientist (super smart, but can’t tie a shoelace)…
ease up y’all…she’s a good one ok? btw, i LOVE that dress n’ the neck decor
oh, Les Mis — everytime i saw that musical on stage i BAWLED crying at the end. i think you’d have to have some real balls to mess that story/musical up, it’s just too powerful
I think she looks beautiful in all these pictures but I can’t stand her in interviews. She is so into herself.
I actually Like Anne Hathaway and find her mostly inoffensive but the my gay brother statement bugs me so much. Why does she have to say my ‘gay brother’ as opposed to just my brother? Ugh. He just happens to be gay the same way she just happens to be straight. Your sexual orientation is not the sum total of who you are and should not always be a qualifier in conversations. Kais’s right. It smacks of ‘hey look at me I support gay rights and my brother’s gay too you know.’ Aren’t I topical? Aren’t I cool? Please give me an Oscar.
Ugh. I think I’m done with Anne posts until her campaigning is over so that all my former good feelings toward her are not completely erased.
Her brother Michael is very hot.
Yep I can see face similarities but she looks more like a hobo with short hair. Short hair doesn’t suit her.
Annie, I saw pictures of your brother on another gossip site and, no, you do not look anything like him at all. He looks better.
I hate her haircut. It just brings attention to all of her features!
You guys act like describing him as gay is an insult.She has more than one brother. I have a blind brother. Last week I mentioned that my. blind brother just got engaged as opposed to my red headed brother or my. muscular brother.I have four older brothers.Some of my friends know them by description. rather than by names.
You use identifiers to your friends, privately. AH did it in an interview at a publicity event, where she knew (or hoped) it would be widely reported.
Too bad she didn’t get her two front teeth pulled so she could hush up for a nanosecond. GRATE!!!
Dried oatmeal paste?