Anne Hathaway: 5 Things to Know About the New Catwoman (original) (raw)

Anne Hathaway has grown up from the family-friendly Princess Diaries star into a serious actress who can handle anything from the dramatic (Rachel Getting Married) to the comedic (The Devil Wears Prada) and the romantic (One Day, due out Aug. 19).

With the first look at Hathaway as Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman, in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, it appears that Hathaway will challenge her range yet again by taking on this physically demanding role.

PHOTO: ‘The Dark Knight Rises:’ Anne Hathaway as Catwoman

Here are five things to know about the actress, who has had a successful career on both stage and screen:

1. Hathaway has been acting in theater since she was a child, and was the first teenager admitted into The Barrow Group Theater Company’s acting program. “I don’t feel comfortable doing movies. It’s not what I trained to do. I trained to be a theater actress,” Hathaway told the AP in 2006. “You put me on a stage in front of 2,000 people, I know what to do.”

2. Hathaway is also a singer, as many people learned when she sang a remake of “On My Own” as the co-host of the Oscars in 2011. Hathaway, a soprano, performed at Carnegie Hall as a member of the All-Eastern United States High School Honors Chorus in 1999. Three days later she got her first TV role, in Fox’s short-live show, Get Real.

3. While traditionally a stage and movie actress, Hathaway won an Emmy in 2010. She used her experience in playing a princess to take on the role as Princess Penelope on The Simpsons, which led to her Creative Arts Emmy for Best Voice-Over Performance.

PHOTOS: Brief History of Catwoman

4. Anne Hathaway was originally cast as the lead in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, but walked away from the film before shooting began. “It was going to show a vagina – not mine, but somebody else’s. And I didn’t believe that it was actually necessary to the story,” Hathaway said about the film to Marie Claire. Katherine Heigl then got the role, telling The Telegraph, “I think Anne found the film a little too radical.”

5. Hathaway has said that playing Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises has been the most demanding role yet, especially fitting into the signature leather costume. “I’ve always thought that skinny was the goal, but with this job I also have to be strong,” Hathaway told Harper’s Bazaar. She said she’s been working out five days per week to get into shape.