On Nov. 12, 1982, an angel was born. She sings in French musicals, she stars in iffy romantic comedies with much younger co-stars, and she steals millions of dollars in fictional jewels because she doesn’t have enough female friends.
Happy 42nd birthday Anne Hathaway, star of Les Miserables, The Idea of You, and Oceans 8, to name a few classics. And, even by the vampiric standards of Hollywood royalty, she hasn’t appeared to age at all.
The movie star and parasocial best friend to many marked the occasion with a thirst trap Instagram post, because why not? She wore an elegant black lace outfit and posed on a leather couch. “Scorpio scorpio-ing in scorpio season,” she wrote in the caption. Many of the comments simply read, “Mother,” as you can imagine.
There was no big public shindig, so she likely had a private celebration with friends and family. If you’re taken aback by the 42 of it all, you’re not alone. Hathaway is often admired for her timeless beauty and how elegantly she has graced the screen over the decades she’s been acting.
The Oscar winner hasn’t slowed down at all in recent years. Lucky us. A twisty erotic thriller by the name of Eileen came out in 2023, and the camp Mother’s Instinct saw her as a cooky housewife opposite Jessica Chastain. Not every hit is a home run — our Mother’s Instinct review said it would be “dead on arrival if not for the performances of its leads” — but you can’t accuse her of resting on her laurels.
As for the future, a Princess Diaries sequel hopes to capitalize on the nation’s nostalgia obsession soon. She’ll also appear in Paper Tiger with Adam Driver, Mother Mary alongside Michaela Coel, and David Rober Mitchell’s Flowervale Street.
If you’re in the mood for a best hits marathon though, you’ll of course have to go back to the role that cemented Hathaway’s place in pop culture: The Devil Wears Prada. A sequel to that might also be happening, but we’re not at the finish line yet and no filming has commenced.
Hathaway’s filmography is refreshingly varied, with musicals, fantasy outliers like Colossal, and rom-com favorites like Bride Wars in the mix. The latter is one of the best bad movies of all time — if you get it, you get it.
Picking winners is tough because of her consistent batting average, but we’d wager Oceans 8 is as good a bet as any. She plays a bratty actor in the movie called Daphe Kluger and was allowed to run away with it. Chris Pine reportedly isn’t involved in Princess Diaries 3, which is in the works at Disney with director Adele Lim attached. It’s unknown if Julie Andrews, 89, will be involved in some way, even just for a cameo, but hopefully the threequel finds a way to celebrate her regardless.
The Pine tidbit has some of us on the fence before the production even starts filming. Still, we know who the real icon is. We’ll live.