Anne Hathaway is Hollywood's new 'it-girl'

Anne Hathaway is Hollywood's new 'it-girl'
(NSI News Source Info) November 14, 2008: 'Rachel Getting Married' gave the 26-year-old actress a huge boost.
" 'IT' is that quality possessed by some which draws all otherswith its magnetic force. With 'IT' you win all men if you are a woman -- all women if you are a man. 'IT' can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction."That's how English romance novelist Elinor Glyn defined the term "it-girl," a phrase that entered the public imagination with the 1927 film "It," based on one of her novels and starring the original it-girl, Clara Bow.
Hollywood is perpetually on the hunt for this elusive quality, this blend of sexuality and innocence, of materialistic chutzpah and good values, of swagger and sincerity, that tends to sell tickets. As the Cameron Diazes, Drew Barrymores and Gwyneth Paltrows age out of the ingénue role, a new crop of young actresses has emerged -- a group that includes Amy Adams, Michelle Williams, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley, contenders to the crown that for years belonged to Julia Roberts, perhaps the last woman movie star who everyone agrees actually guaranteed attendance in the theaters.At the moment much of Hollywood is chattering about pretty Anne Hathaway, another dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty, who was plucked out of relative obscurity by Roberts' own star-maker, "Pretty Woman" director Garry Marshall. Disney was explicitly looking for the next Audrey Hepburn when Marshall cast this New Jersey-raised actress, with one short-lived TV series to her credit, as the lead in the 2001 hit franchise, "The Princess Diaries." Seven years later, the 26-year-old Hathaway has finally been transformed into the it-girl of the moment, with a string of commercial hits to her name, and heat fueled by her unexpected but thoroughly wrenching performance as an addict on furlough from rehab for her sister's wedding in "Rachel Getting Married." Already, Hathaway is getting Oscar buzz.And she's getting the sympathy vote. Ironically enough, there's often nothing that endears a star to her audience more than love's travails, a bad boyfriend or two.Hathaway's Italian boyfriend of four years, Raffaello Follieri, has recently been sentenced to prison for 54 months for fraud. The double whammy of on-screen and off-screen despair has curiously combined to give Hathaway heft and maturity, making her more than just another pretty face.Late-night skewerHathaway has also deftly managed the media circus. Although it-girls inevitably magnetize attention, it's not every starlet who's forced to explain herself to such august pop culture pashas as David Letterman, who recently grilled Hathaway about her personal life.Dressed demurely in black, Hathaway tried joking, "As far as relationships crashing and burning, I did pretty great. Scorch that earth." But being Letterman, he wouldn't desist, asking her questions such as, "Was there ever stuff missing out of your purse?" She mostly laughed, except for when she hid her face in her hands, literally trying to shield herself from his comic barrage.In addition to Letterman, Hathaway recently did "Saturday Night Live," and pluckily served up quotes about her romantic train wreck for cover stories in Entertainment Weekly, W and, one presumes, the upcoming issue of Vogue, which should hit newsstands about the time that academy members start thinking about their Oscar ballots.Vanity Fair offered up a pretty good vivisection of her jet-set love affair with Follieri, and it "made her more interesting," notes one top talent agent. "There is something about the poor girl, the ones that can never find the right love interest. It's part of the type, if you look back through history."Indeed, although film historian Janine Basinger recoils at the thought that audiences enjoy seeing their cinematic icons suffer, she does note that a little glimpse of real vulnerability can burnish a star's allure. "There is some thinking that it makes all the women identify with her. Raise your hand if you've ever had a bad boyfriend. One of the appeals for a female star is a sense of vulnerability or being human, of not being greater than the rest of us, of not being detached from us because they're more beautiful or have better clothes. Historically, we like women stars like June Allyson or , who seem human."Our stars don't have to be perfect. They just have to be imperfect in a way we can tolerate, and that's unpredictable and related to how we see them on-screen."Of course, Hollywood also appreciates Hathaway's growing box-office clout. Insiders peg her price per movie between $5 million and $10 million, and Hathaway's seeming imperfections dovetail nicely with what has become her commercial niche, the girl-power comedy. Most major women stars -- including Roberts, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep (or Miley Cyrus or any of the tween stars) -- have risen to glory with a devoted female fan base.For young women, the greater fantasy is not finding a man but finding yourself, becoming the person you were destined to be. (That's the real theme of "Titanic," perhaps the biggest chick flick of all time.)Committed to roleFox 2000 chief Elizabeth Gabler recalls Hathaway pitching herself for "The Devil Wears Prada," which, at that very early stage in the game, didn't have Streep attached to play the viperous fashion magazine editor."She was absolutely committed to getting the role. She gave us script notes on the third act," says Gabler. "Annie was feeling that her character would walk away [from her assistant's life]. She is in Paris, and has a changed perspective on life." The studio wound up using a version of this idea in the film, and ultimately cast Hathaway in the part.More comedies are coming down the pike starring Hathaway, including "Bride Wars," a female version of the burgeoning bromance genre, about best friends (Hathaway and Kate Hudson) who inadvertently turn into battling bridezillas; "The Fiancé," about a woman who wants to dump her fiancé much to her parents' chagrin; and a sports-comedy in the vein of "Broadcast News" featuring Hathaway as an aspiring and definitively spunky sportscaster.As one studio executive noted, Hathaway is practically the only twentysomething woman whom a studio would comfortably stake a romantic comedy on -- and she's still about half the price of a more established phenomenon like Reese Witherspoon.What's most notable about Hathaway is that she isn't Lindsay Lohan, or any of the other teen stars who've crashed and burned on their way to becoming grown-ups. And she has surprised people, even insiders, with the depth of her talent."We've all seen her do a number of things," says Sony Classics President Michael Barker. His studio released "Rachel Getting Married." "She has a very mainstream-actress, star personality. I know my daughters have always adored her, then here comes a movie like ["Rachel"] and it shows an incredible dramatic range that a lot of people felt she didn't have. Another part has to do with her as a person. When you see her in interviews, she has a sincerity and intelligence that is infectious."Some doubtersStill, for some not already in the Anne Hathaway business, the jury is still out on whether Hathaway will ascend from it-girl to the next rung of stardom, the Mt. Olympus of Teflon mega-celebrity, where only megaliths such as Tom Cruise, Will Smith and Roberts reside.Perversely, Hollywood often judges star power on the ability to sell junk, to have such strong charisma that moviegoers will pay to see your film no matter what it is. Cruise made a hit out of "Cocktail," while Roberts, in her post-"Pretty Woman" glow, made a $100-million hit out of "Sleeping With the Enemy."At the time, Roberts' it factor was so potent that audiences clamored to bask in her mega-watt grin. But Hathaway has more of a climb ahead of her before reaching those heights. Three weeks ago, Sony released its new Hathaway pic, the supernatural thriller, "Passengers"; so far, it's earned a meager $292,000 at the domestic box office.As one agent sniffs, "If you're the it-girl, if you're Julia Roberts, anything you do would be news."