In Lone Scherfig's adaptation of the best-selling novel One Day, Anne Hathaway stars as a British waitress/writer whose romantic and professional pursuits -- as well as her complicated relationship with Jim Sturgess's wealthy womanizer -- are chronicled across two decades. So, how did Hathaway transform herself from a Disney princess to a sardonic working class girl from New England?
You can always trace a direct line through a few important roles to illustrate what led to an actor's current success. So let's look at nine pivotal performances that track the evolution of the Oscar nominated Anne Hathaway.
Get Real (1999)
Like any successful New York theater kid, Hathaway spent her childhood and teens starring in school plays, performing in the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus and landing at least one seriously dramatic commercial before winning her first serious role in the short-lived Fox series Get Real at the age of 17. In spite of the show's nascent star power -- Hathaway played the beautiful, smart onscreen sister of future Oscar-nominee Jesse Eisenberg -- Get Real was pulled off the air prematurely during its first season.
The Princess Diaries (2001)
Shortly after being cast in another Disney movie, The Other Side of Heaven, Hathaway beat out 500 actresses to play the lead character in Garry Marshall's comedy The Princess Diaries. (As legend goes, the director cast the Brooklyn-born actress as his clumsy royal after she fell off her chair during the first audition.) For her role as Mia Thermopolis, an unknowing heir to a fictional Disney throne, Anne Hathway held her own against Julie Andrews, earned critical praise and helped Diaries became a commercial hit that grossed over $160 million worldwide.
Havoc (2005)
Having earned a reputation as a squeaky clean actress for her work in the family-friendly Princess Diaries franchise and the mediocre film fairytale Ella Enchanted, Hathaway redirected her career at the age of 23 with the gritty straight-to-DVD drama Havoc. Playing a spoiled Los Angeles teen who adopts a faux gangster lifestyle with her friends, Hathaway's character managed to appear nude, have sex in the back seat of a car, witness a gang rape, smoke crack cocaine and perform oral sex on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character. Hathaway denied that her decision to take on Havoc had anything to do with wanting audiences to consider her a mature actress, but again, the actress went from taking elocution lessons from Mary Poppins to smoking crack cocaine on a bed with Bijou Phillips. You do the math.
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
After appearing topless and having more car sex in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, Hathaway buttoned her shirt back up to star in David Frankel's adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's novel. Returning to her foolproof Princess Diaries character formula, Hathaway played an awkward, unpolished young woman who finds herself groomed for an elite type of society. She didn't earn an Oscar nomination like her esteemed co-star Meryl Streep but she did help make this chick flick her highest grossing box office title (until Rio) with $327 million worldwide.
Becoming Jane (2007)
The next year, Anne Hathaway was faced with a crucial decision: play a one-dimensional hot chick who lets herself get impregnated by an unemployed stoner...or play Jane Austen. The actress chose the latter, bequeathing her Knocked Up role to Katherine Heigl allegedly because she did not agree with Judd Apatow's decision to use footage from a real birth. While Becoming Jane was not nearly as popular as Judd Apatow's Seth Rogen comedy, Julian Jarrold's historical film received generally positive reviews -- with one criticism being about Hathaway's British accent, which she would have a chance to reattempt four years later for One Day.
Rachel Getting Married (2008)
For Jonathan Demme's 2008 drama, Hathaway earned her first Academy Award nomination for playing a problematic young woman released from rehab so that she can attend (and wreak havoc on) her sister's wedding. This was Hathaway's first time playing a deeply tormented, narcissistic pain in the ass, and her raw performance helped this film, written by Jenny Lumet, land on many critics' Best Films list in 2008.
Bride Wars (2009)
Most A-list Hollywood actresses have at least one bomb of a mainstream rom-com on their resume and Bride Wars was Hathaway's. It's just too bad that she had to rebound from her Oscar nomination with a role that demanded she booty shake at a bachelorette party and wrestle her best friend at her wedding for laughs. I guess the silver lining in this universally detested comedy was two MTV Movie Award nominations (for Best Female Performance and Best Fight).
The 83rd Annual Academy Awards (2011)
The mark of a true America's Sweetheart, in Hollywood at least, is that she can escape a large-scale entertainment disaster miraculously unscathed, even if she was partly to blame. And that is exactly what happened with this year's Oscar telecast -- Anne Hathaway established herself as one of our most beloved entertainers based entirely on the fact that the American public did not turn on her the way they turned on Hathaway's texting co-host James Franco. It could have been partly because in spite of its horribleness, Hathaway looked like she was genuinely trying to put on a great show or maybe just because she wasn't scowling at the home audience in drag. Either way, the Oscar aftermath proved that in America's heart, Anne Hathaway is still just a Disney princess and James Franco is the gnarled villain who ruined the 2011 telecast.
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One Day (2011)
And now Hathaway returns to the big screen in her first leading live action role since the ill-fated Oscars. Will the Brooklyn-born actress continue to earn audience's love as she, again, plays a mousy heroine with shaky confidence in this chick-lit adaptation? Probably, even if One Day is trampled by Conan the Barbarian, Spy Kids and Fright Night at the box office. Regardless, we are excited to see how Hathaway continues to evolve onscreen.