Duana has always been able to see the truth of who Annie is: a theatre kid, and theatre kids will never give up on a show. When the show is going badly, it’s the theatre kids who will stick it out to the end, it’s the theatre kids who sing their hearts out until they drown.

Hathahate, however, took a toll on Anne Hathaway – as it would on anyone. But a decade later, as the culture continues to interrogate itself, and course-correct from its mistakes, we find Annie in her 40s, and better than ever.

She is currently promoting Eileen, an independent film due out December 1 that Sarah reviewed last January after its premiere at Sundance. As she wrote in her piece, “ten out of ten, no notes”, describing the film as “horny and deranged”. Eileen came out of Sundance with acclaim, which is why there are some people out there wondering why it’s not a bigger part of the award season conversation. To go back to Sarah though, this is a really competitive year, and there are so many bigger, higher profile movies that are taking up all the space. But while Annie is out here hyping it, because it’s her job, I’m not sure that she cares as much, or at least in the same way, that she did back in 2013.

That’s what happens when you’ve been through it, when you enter your no f-cks era, and most importantly… when you start having a GREAT time. This is where Annie seems to be now. Which is not to say that she’s not trying anymore, because she’ll always try, she’s a theatre kid after all. But as she says in the new issue of Porter this month:

“I feel like I lived in a space for a really long time where I was so afraid of doing it wrong and so tightly connected to the idea of doing it right. It makes not a damn bit of difference if you do it right or wrong. The point is, are you having a good time? Do you feel like yourself? And is it working with you?”  

Once you figure that out, you can keep the trying part the same in terms of the effort you put in, but now it just becomes more fun. Annie is having FUN.

And you know what one of the first signs of that was? Her style. And this is highlighted in the Porter profile as a big part of the Hathaissance that kicked off last year. It was about 18 months ago when Anne Hathaway showed up in Cannes with what seemed to be a new fashion personality. She slayed those carpets, she went viral for her looks, and the momentum just kept building from there. Valentino, Bulgari, Versace, Shiseido…

She just hosted the CFDAs last week and killed it in an all-denim look. So, once again, we are seeing how fashion and clothing, expression through wardrobe, can be a professional asset, a vital part of career management. In other words, a significant part of the work and how celebrities identify themselves through their work.

This is personal for Annie. She’s in a new decade of her life now – a more confident one, more self-assured, and that’s reflected in the way she’s presenting herself publicly through her looks.

Which, not coincidentally, complements the roles she’s been taking onscreen. In Eileen she’s plays a femme fatale and as Sarah notes in her review, she understands the assignment. Anne Hathaway of 2023 has moved beyond Andy Sachs. She’s now the mysterious older woman who influences the younger woman; she’s the one taking advantage of the impressionable ingenue.

And at some point next year, she’ll be the older woman who falls in love with a much younger popstar in the film adaptation of The Idea of You, a horny book that, hopefully, has been made into a horny movie.

Which is exactly right for where we find Annie now, because she has never been 𝑠e𝑥ier, never been more desirable.

Here she is yesterday on junket duty in New York in a perfect fall outfit that Miranda Priestly would 100% cosign.