Anne Hathaway Says That She Stopped Getting Sent Romantic Scripts As She Neared Turning 40

Anne Hathaway turned the beautiful age of 40 in November 2022, and, as associated with the rom-com genre as Hathaway is, said she stopped getting pitched romantic scripts as she neared her forties—that is, until her latest project, The Idea of You, came along.

“I didn’t notice that it was happening, but I had received a lot of romantic scripts in my twenties,” Hathaway said at a press conference for her new film, per Us Weekly. “And then in my thirties, I was kind of so focused on my family life and motherhood and kind of trying to find whatever my path was going to be, being an actress while having this really, really rich personal life. And so I didn’t notice, I hadn’t been sent a romantic script in a really long time. So when [The Idea of You] found its way to me, it was such a beautiful character in such an amazing world.” 

In the film (which is based on Robinne Lee’s 2017 book of the same name), Hathaway plays Soléne, a recently divorced 40-year-old woman who falls in love with a 24-year-old musician, Hayes Campbell (played by Nicholas Galitzine) after taking her daughter to see her favorite band, August Moon, play at Coachella. Hathaway said she was “honored” to receive an offer to play Soléne, but it made her wonder, “Where have all these stories gone?”

She added “Why do they stop? I don’t know. And then those questions, I saw all of the paths to the answers in the script and in the story, and  just thought, ‘Whoa, what an unbelievable sort of meta exploration all of this can be.’”

Hathaway was 39 years old when production on The Idea of You began, and turned 40 during filming. Reaching that milestone age caused Hathaway to be more self-reflective than she expected: “Without me even designing it or any of us designing it, it became so personal to me,” she said. “And then the way it came together with [director] Michael Showalter…and then when the cast came together, it was, like, game over. I could go on and on about it.”

The movie’s producer Cathy Schulman said of Hathaway that “She was our first choice,” adding that Hathaway was the only person who read for the role. “She said yes, and it was a dream come true that actually happened,” she said.

Hathaway and Galitzine formed an almost instant connection, Galitzine said, telling reporters that “Annie and I felt a chemistry and a connection between us immediately and a simpatico,” he said, noting that he was “filled with a sense of excitement” coming to set each day, which is “not always the case.”

Hathaway credited their onscreen magic to them both being “very playful people,” and added of her experience on the film that “I felt really, really cared for and supported on this movie. I just knew that whatever I was doing, Nick was there with me step for step. And it was a really, really beautiful, very vulnerable experience.”

The Idea of You “subverts traditional rom-com tropes by featuring a relationship between a 40-year-old woman and a much younger man,” Today reports. Hathaway (along with Galitzine) stopped by the show this morning, where the actress said “It’s kind of fun to be in a film where we talk about it, where we don’t dance around it, but we actually embrace her point of view on it,” she said. 

Hathaway added “It’s funny, it’s okay if 40 is old, it’s okay if 40 isn’t old, it’s okay whatever it is, because it’s personal. For Soléne, her point of view is, you know, she became a mom really young and she really wanted to have a career and so she doesn’t totally identify with her age. She feels like maybe she’s done things a little bit out of order and for her, 40 means it’s a time…of self-discovery for her. And that’s what the movie says—how wonderful that she finds someone that she feels so supported by, seen by, embraced by, valued by.”

The Idea of You is out on Amazon Prime this Thursday, May 2.