Anne Jacqueline Hathaway

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress who made her debut in the 1999 television series Get Real. After it was cancelled, she was cast as Mia Thermopolis in the Disney family comedy The Princess Diaries (2001), from which her career gained momentum. Over the next three years, Hathaway continued to star in family films, reprising the role for its sequel, and appearing as the titular character in Ella Enchanted (both 2004).

Interested in other projects, Hathaway began a career transition with supporting roles in Havoc and Brokeback Mountain (both 2005). She subsequently co-starred with Meryl Streep in the adult comedy The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and appeared in Becoming Jane (2007) as author Jane Austen. In 2008, she earned widespread critical acclaim for her lead role in the film Rachel Getting Married, for which she won numerous industry awards, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Hathaway's acting style has been compared to Judy Garland and Audrey Hepburn and she cites Hepburn as one of her favorite actresses and Streep as an icon. People magazine named her one of its breakthrough stars of 2001 and she first appeared on its list of the world's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2006.

Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Gerald Hathaway, a lawyer, and Kate McCauley, an actress who inspired Hathaway to follow in her footsteps. The family moved to Millburn, New Jersey, when she was six years old. She has an older brother, Michael, and a younger brother, Thomas. Hathaway has mainly Irish and French ancestry, with more distant German and Native American roots.

Hathaway was raised a Catholic with what she considered "really strong values," and has stated she wanted to be a nun during her childhood. However, at the age of fifteen she decided not to become a nun after learning that her brother, Michael, was gay. Despite her Catholic upbringing, she felt that she could not be part of a religion that disapproved of her brother's sexual orientation. She has stated that she is a non-denominational Christian because she has not "found the religion" for her.

As a child, Hathaway was involved in a Montessori program at Brooklyn Heights Montessori School as a preschooler and was then able to enter first grade at the Wyoming Elementary School in Millburn, NJ while she was technically still a kindergartner. Hathaway graduated from Millburn High School where she participated in many school plays; her high school performance as Winifred in Once Upon a Mattress garnered her a Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Award nomination for Best Performance by a High School Actress. During this time, Hathaway was also involved in plays such as Jane Eyre and Gigi at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse (which is located in Millburn, across the street from Hathaway's middle school). She spent several semesters studying as an English major and Women's Studies minor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, before transferring to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, referring to her college enrollment as one of her best decisions, because she enjoyed being with others who were trying to "grow up." Hathaway was a member of the Barrow Group Theater Company's acting program and was the first teenager ever admitted into the program. She is a trained stage actress and has stated that she prefers performing on stage to film roles.

A soprano, Hathaway performed in 1998 and 1999 with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and has performed in plays at Seton Hall Prep in West Orange, NJ. Three days after her 1999 performance at Carnegie Hall, she was cast in the short-lived Fox television series Get Real, at the age of sixteen.