In perhaps the most Anne Hathaway move of all time, Anne Hathaway has found a genius way to perpetuate the constant discussion of her Oscar win by commenting on the questionable sincerity of her acceptance speech — by saying that, in fact, she was miserable when winning the Oscar she won.
Let us explain — or, actually, let us transcribe the acutely self-aware Hathaway in explaining what is crucial to our own understanding of art, commerce and awards: how she feels about it.
“I tried to pretend that I was happy and I got called out on it, big time. That’s the truth and that’s what happened. It sucks,” Hathaway said in a recent interview with The Guardian.
Hathaway is referring to the now-famous and largely derided exclamation she made in climbing the stairs of Hollywood’s Kodak Theater in 2013, when she won Best Supporting Actress for “Les Miserables.”
“It came true!” she gushed, a childlike sentiment presumably referring to both her lifelong dream of winning an Academy Award and to her character Fantine’s famous lyric, “I dreamed a dream in time gone by.”
What still hasn’t gone by is the invective inspired by Hathaway’s preciousness. She would now appear to agree with everyone who saw through it.
“I felt very uncomfortable. I kind of lost my mind doing that movie and it hadn’t come back yet,” Hathaway said. “Then I had to stand up in front of people and feel something I don’t feel which is uncomplicated happiness.”
There it is! Uncomplicated happiness, as you see, means Anne was not free from the burden of her blighted sex worker character.
“It’s an obvious thing, you win an Oscar and you’re supposed to be happy. I didn’t feel that way. I felt wrong that I was standing there in a gown that cost more than some people are going to see in their lifetime,” Hathaway said, “winning an award for portraying pain that still felt very much a part of our collective experience as human beings.”
There you have it. Anne Hathaway was not feigning happiness because she’s insincere or self-involved, it’s because she feels things deeply. She is a deeply feeling person.
Hathaway will soon begin production on Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow’s “Ocean’s 8,” an all-female extension of the “Ocean’s Eleven” film franchise.