Winning an Academy Award has been known to boost the careers of those fortunate enough to earn the gold statue. On the flip side, some actors don’t see their careers change at all after Oscar glory.
In the least favorable scenario, actors like Anne Hathaway may find themselves even worse off for taking home the prize.
Anne Hathaway had to pretend to be happy after winning her Oscar for ‘Les Miserables’
Hathaway won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 2012 feature Les Miserables.
The acclaimed project was a musical featuring an ensemble cast that included Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Amanda Seyfried. Taking place in the early 19th century in France, Hathaway portrayed Fantine. The character was a poor factory worker trying to make ends meet who becomes a sex worker for more money.
The film brought Hathaway much praise and acclaim for her performance. But when she won one of the highest honors an actor could be given, she had trouble enjoying the moment.
“I felt very uncomfortable. I kind of lost my mind doing that movie and it hadn’t come back yet,” she once said in a 2016 interview with The Guardian.
She confided the role responsible for her success also made it difficult to soak in her accomplishments.
“I felt wrong that I was standing there in a gown that cost more than some people are going to see in their lifetime, and winning an award for portraying pain that still felt very much a part of our collective experience as human beings,” she said. “I tried to pretend that I was happy and I got called on it, big time.”
Anne Hathaway had trouble getting hired for movies after the backlash over her Oscar Win
The reception towards Hathaway’s Oscar-win didn’t go the way the actor might have hoped. The speech she gave on stage after her victory inspired a certain amount of vitriol online that piled on the superstar. But Hathaway asserted that public speaking isn’t her strength, which might have been why some didn’t enjoy the way Hathaway presented herself on stage.
Hathaway felt that she fumbled through her speech because of her nerves. Because of this, some labeled her as inauthentic. Hathaway agreed that she wasn’t being her authentic self at the time, but not for the reasons others believed.
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“I couldn’t tie this moment to what I really wanted to say,” she once said in a 2014 interview with Harper’s Bazaar.
Her perceived lack of authenticity, however, would also later cost her a couple of film roles.
“I had directors say to me, ‘I think you’re great. You’re perfect for this role, but I don’t know how audiences will accept you because of all this stuff, this baggage,’” Hathaway recalled.
It was her later work in Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar that put her career back on track.
“Once it was announced that I was doing Interstellar, thankfully the phone started ringing again,” she said.
Anne Hathaway has also lost out on roles for not being sexy enough
Hathaway had already encountered being turned down for roles that seemingly fit her even before her Oscar backlash. Hathaway also recalled filmmakers turning her down because she lacked the right kind of appeal for what they were looking for.
“A lot of people have told me, ‘You’re not this and so can’t play that,’ and I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve been told I’m not sexy,” she said.
But Hathaway felt such responses just showed a lack of imagination, and an underestimation of her acting abilities.
“I just go: ‘I’m a lot of things. Just because I don’t wear my sexiness overtly doesn’t mean that I can’t become that girl for a role. That’s what I do; I become things. Use your imagination, buddy.’ So in terms of not listening to what other people told me about who I was as an actress and then really pursuing it, I think I’ve been daring in that way,” she said.
