Anne Hathaway is currently promoting WeCrashed, the Apple+ series about the WeWork scandal. She plays Rebekah Neumann, wife of WeWork’s Adam Neumann. Anne’s work/life priorities have really shifted in recent years, especially since becoming a mother. She’s become more withdrawn as a celebrity, much more private, less likely to spill any major tea in an interview. I had actually forgotten that she had the second baby – her oldest, Jonathan Rosebanks, is 6 years old, and her younger son Jack is two years old. She covers WSJ. Magazine and surprisingly, this is mostly about motherhood and babies.
On motherhood: “I didn’t feel fully landed and fully here until I was a mom. It’s not like I was lacking integrity, but it made me want to be completely, on every level, true to my word. And that meant stopping any nonsense that I had going on inside myself. And it’s little breaks that you give yourself sometimes when you know that you’re not being your best self.”
Whether she’ll have any additional kids: She says she “could see us going for another one,” she understands the challenges that come with pregnancy. “There’s this tendency to portray getting pregnant, having kids, in one light, as if it’s all positive. But I know from my own experience … it’s so much more complicated than that. And when you find out that your pain is shared by others … you just think, I just feel that’s helpful information to have, so I’m not isolated in my pain. I mean, what is there to be ashamed of? This is grief, and that’s a part of life.”
She hopes her kids stay out of acting while they’re young: “I would probably take the same tack that my parents did with me, which is: You have all the time in the world to be a professional actor; you can only be a child once. So I would encourage them to study, to go to classes, to read, but I would strongly discourage them from starting too young. I think that they’ll be in a position where they’ll be able to go to college and figure out where they want to go from there.”
The part about pregnancy not being all positive and challenge-free reminded me of when Anne revealed her second pregnancy (look, I did remember some of it!) and within the announcement, she wrote: “For everyone going through infertility and conception hell, please know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies. Sending you extra love.” She expanded on that later, saying in part, “I just knew that somewhere my announcement was going to make somebody feel worse about themselves because — and it wouldn’t be their fault that that happened — you just can’t help it when you want something so bad and it feels like it’s happening to everyone else but you.” It’s clear that she’s dealt with fertility issues or something similar throughout her motherhood journey. She shows so much empathy and kindness just by acknowledging that everything around pregnancy isn’t always sparkles and magic. Even if you have a “successful” pregnancy, there are still so many less-sparkly things that can happen.
Cover & IG courtesy of WSJ. Magazine.
I rea-a-a-a-a-lly like her in WeCrashed. Have a hard time appreciating Jared Leto, because of the creep allegations, but it’s a really enjoyable watch. Better than The Dropout and Inventing Anna, imo, which were hollow. And Super Pumped was fun too.
Anne didn’t have a choice but to withdraw. Any and everything she did, people just found an excuse to be annoyed with her. Promotion is part of her job and she did it. Haven’t heard one word about her being difficult to work with in any arena of her career, but she still got dragged.
Being annoying sometimes happens, but she did not deserve the vitriol she got because of it.
Agreed.
And she definitely had/has a right to have her name spelled correctly.
And to those “it’s the way she said it!”
Nah. Wouldn’t matter how she said it, people would drag because women are expected to put up & shut up.
I’ve always liked AH. Never got the negativity or nastiness directed at her. She’s smart, hardworking, and dynamic to watch on-screen.
+1
She was filming a movie on my block once, off and on for three weeks, and of all the actors in the movie, she was the only one not to interact with the people who came around to see the actors and watch a movie being made, No hello, no eye contact. She had her body guard or whoever that was, walk her across the street from the house where they were filming to the house that hosted the actors. I think it’s that type of action that turns people off.
I don’t think that’s fair to judge her based on that. We don’t know what was going on in her life at that point in time.
Maybe all of this was why she was crying everywhere all the time. Have always thought that people get so peeved about AH because she comes off lachrymose. Can’t judge the bodyguards too harshly as ambivalent female stars (thinking Anna Kendrick) often have crazy stalkers. In any case, glad she found fulfillment?
For someone who supposedly cares about infertility, her “I didn’t land until I became a mother” is not exactly aligned.
I’m in my first trimester and have the worst fatigue in my life, random waves of queasiness, and terrible breakouts. We didn’t have any difficulty conceiving and this child is planned – but I am so grateful I have women around me I can complain to without it being all “but this is BEAUTIFUL”. Some things are worth it but still suck a little!