Anne Hathaway sheds light on one of the talking points surrounding the production of The Devil Wears Prada 2, which brings back the Oscar winner as Andy Sachs. In a cover story for Harper’s Bazaar last month, Hathaway’s co-star Meryl Streep revealed that Hathaway met with the film’s producers on set and urged them to cast models with size in mind. Since then, Hathaway has been repeatedly asked about fighting to ensure size inclusivity during production.
“It was just a little thing that happened on set, and now it’s become a much bigger story,” Hathaway recently said about the incident on Good Morning America, but she clarified that she never advocated for the models to be fired from the set, which is how some people on social media interpreted the story.
“Let me just say this: There’s a lot of misinformation going around right now that people were fired because of inclusivity, but that didn’t actually happen,” Hathaway said. “Nobody lost their jobs. In fact, it created more jobs…It’s very hard because you can’t say what the scene is about, but there’s a song that Lady Gaga wrote and it’s a beautiful, wonderful song. Don’t you think it makes it better when you see so many different types of bodies out there?”
Streep told Harper’s Bazaar in March that she was surprised by how thin the models on the movie set were, saying, “Annie also measured that and took it straight to the producers and assured them that the models in the show that we assembled for the movie weren’t that thin! She’s a stand-up girl.”
At the world premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2 in New York City, Hathaway spoke to Variety for the first time about Streep’s revelations.
“I noticed that there were beautiful models on set, but many of them were traditional model sizes,” she said. “I knew what the background of the scene was, and I thought it would be more fun for the audience to have a wider variety of bodies on display, because all the different shapes are beautiful.”
“I went to the producers and asked them this question: ‘Don’t you think the scene would be stronger if we took a more comprehensive approach to sizing?'” Hathaway continued. “They looked up and were so sad that they didn’t think about it. I think they were so locked in and just going with the flow. But as soon as they saw it, they were the ones who made it happen in an hour or so.”
Hathaway clarified on Good Morning America that just because a movie’s producers hire size-inclusive models, that doesn’t mean the models originally cast will lose their jobs on the movie. The goal was to ensure that the scenes being filmed were representative of all models and body types.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 will be released in theaters on May 1st. Watch Hathaway’s full interview on “GMA” in the video below.
