HOLLYWOOD -- Anne Hathaway's next chapter will be for adults only.
The 21-year-old star of The Princess Diaries and its sequel has been shooting Ang Lee's gay-themed Brokeback Mountain near Calgary this summer, signalling a move away from the teen genre that made her famous.
"I think the tiara is going into retirement for me. Disney may make (a third), but I don't know if I will," the 21-year-old actress says when asked about continuing The Princess Diaries franchise beyond the sequel, which opens Wednesday.
"Honestly, it was difficult enough finding quirky and fun stuff to do as a 21-year-old.
"Can you imagine me being 24 and still in a G-rated movie?"
Yet Hathaway, who is unafraid of sexually frank material, avoided the sort of movie most young performers in her position make -- namely, exploitative B-flicks filled with calculated shocks, a la Alyssa Milano in that bisexual vampire movie she made post-Who's the Boss.
In Brokeback Mountain, Hathaway -- instead of remaking Poison Ivy or turning up in Basic Instinct 2 as Sharon Stone's leg-crossing daughter -- has found that rare film that promises both controversy and respectability, thanks to its director, Oscar-winner Lee.
"It's a dream. (For me) it was no decision (to take the part). It was all Ang's decision. I was like 'Pick me! Pick me!' I never saw myself stopping at teen movies. It just was the genre I worked in for a little bit," she says, adding her move into non-G-rated flicks isn't a shallow bid to further her career.
"It wasn't like, 'Finally, the crossover!' ... I would never choose something to just shake up my image."
Before Brokeback premieres, she'll also star in Havoc, playing a rich teen in a downward spiral.
As for whether she feels a responsibility to be a role model, she says, "I don't court that. And I wouldn't compromise who I am to fit that image.
"That would just be self-defeating because then I'm being fake, and what kind of role model is that?"
In Brokeback Mountain, which is expected to wrap production shortly, Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play a rodeo cowboy and a ranchhand who fall in love in the '60s.
Hathaway portrays Gyllenhaal's wife and mother of his children.
"A lot of people jokingly call it 'the gay cowboy movie,' " Hathaway says.
"And I get that, but I think that's limiting as to what it is.
"It's a story about people who have this intense love for each other, but they can't be together."
Asked how she's spent her time off in Calgary, she says, "I haven't had that much time off.
"I haven't been to Murrieta's yet, but I love Good Earth (Cafe). That's my favourite place."
In The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, Hathaway's awkward princess, Mia, moves to the fictitious nation of Genovia to succeed her grandmother (Julie Andrews) as royal ruler. Those plans, however, are threatened when Mia learns she has to marry within 30 days or lose the throne.
As in the original, much of the film's humour comes from Hathaway's performance as the accident-prone princess.
Not surprisingly, the actress herself is, in the words of her director Garry Marshall, "a klutz."
Marshall recalls that during her first audition, Hathaway "tripped and fell! But she can speak and she looked very nice.
"Her hair wasn't so nice, but the second audition, she must have come from a new place, because my grandchildren saw her and said she has princess hair.
"Most people will fall and be embarrassed. Annie will just get right back up and say, 'It was an accident.' "
On the Brokeback Mountain set the other week, Hathaway says, she was thrown off a horse.
Was she hurt?
"Yeah, but not badly," she says with a shrug and laugh.
"I was on the horse in May and I thought in order to play a barrel racer, I had to get much better at riding. So I trained for a few weeks in New York at Claremont Riding Academy and got really good ...
"So I got up there, and they put me up there on a barrel racing horse and they said, 'Wow you've really improved.'
"But then on the day of, they switched horses and I didn't know how to talk to the horse. The other one was a kickstart horse -- you kick him, he goes. This (new) one, he didn't like to be kicked.
"He liked verbal commands as opposed to physical ones which is all I had worked with.
"So he stopped on a dime and I got pitched forward. I grabbed him around the neck and tried to pull myself up. But then he started spinning and that was when I was like, 'OK, time to get off.'
"Once everybody realized I hadn't hit my head on the gate, which was good, I got up, dusted myself off and got back on because I didn't even want a second to think about it.
"So I got straight back up on the horse and I was kind of bruised up, so it hurt a little bit to ride because I have a bruise on the inside of my upper thigh ... but you know, we had to shoot the scene so we just finished it."
Not that Hathaway is impervious to embarrassment.
"My most truly gut-wrenching embarrassing moment that I wish never happened? I went to the premiere of a film once not realizing that the dress I was wearing, when flashbulbs flashed, was see-through. To this day, I can't think about it without wanting to crawl into a hole and die; it was so incredibly embarrassing.
"I was so ashamed ... It's different when you're doing it for a character and it's an artistic decision, then it's just a matter of, 'I forgot to wear a bra.' "
Marshall has heard the comparisons between Hathaway and another young actress he directed -- Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
"Julia was 21 during Pretty Woman. Anne's 21 now. But I think she's much more Audrey Hepburn. She has a Judy Garland kind of a thing. Judy Garland was beautiful, but there was trouble in those eyes. Annie doesn't have the trouble, but she can act it."
Heather Matarazzo, who returns in the follow-up as Mia's best friend, concurs. "I think (Hathaway's) grown up and matured. I think it's really hard when you get thrown into the spotlight at so young an age overnight. She's got a good head on her shoulders."
And how has life changed for Hathaway herself?
"I'm a lot nicer to myself," she says. "I was very focused on my work before. I allowed my work to dictate my life and I've given myself the opportunity to have a life. I think that's the biggest (change)."
Along with, it should be added, a new man in her life.
"I think I've found my Prince Charming, yeah," she says, declining to identify him.
Does she find men are intimidated by her fame?
"I've found intimidated men my entire life -- it has nothing to do with fame. I'm a really strong person. I was told, 'For a woman, you're very opinionated,' and I just said to that person, 'For a man, you're kind of ignorant.' "
With her career at a crossroads, Hathaway muses about what her life would be like had she never become an actress.
"I would have just graduated. I would have been in Europe right now, bumming rides off people and making entries into my journal and just being a little daredevil romantic person.
"I'd probably have short hair, too."
More Artists
