Anne Hathaway Born: Oscar-Winning Actress Arrives

Anne Hathaway launched her career as a Disney princess in The Princess Diaries before proving her dramatic range with an Oscar-winning turn as Fantine in Les Miserables. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1982, and raised in Millburn, New Jersey, she was the first teenager admitted to the Barrow Group acting program in New York City. Her breakout role came at eighteen in The Princess Diaries opposite Julie Andrews, and the film's commercial success established her as a bankable young actress. She resisted being typecast in family entertainment, taking the role of a recovering addict in the 2008 film Rachel Getting Married, which earned her first Academy Award nomination. Her performance in The Devil Wears Prada opposite Meryl Streep demonstrated her ability to hold the screen against the most respected actress of her generation. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2013 for Les Miserables, in which she sang "I Dreamed a Dream" in a single continuous take that director Tom Hooper filmed in close-up, capturing every crack and tremor in her voice. She lost twenty-five pounds for the role and shaved her head on camera. Her filmography spans Christopher Nolan's Interstellar and The Dark Knight Rises, the Ocean's franchise, and independent films that demonstrated her range extended well beyond the romantic comedies that had launched her career. She became a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and an advocate for parental leave policies. Her career sustained itself through two decades by consistently choosing roles that challenged the audience's expectations of what a former Disney princess should become.