NEW YORK -- Growing up, or in Anne Hathaway's case, maturing on the big screen hasn't been easy.

As Entertainment Weekly recently pointed out, six of the actress' eight films have been rated G or PG. Her breakout film, 2001's The Princess Diaries, which grossed $100 million, and its 2004 sequel, gave her a huge teen and tween girl following.

Not even when the Brooklyn-born Hathaway appeared nude in the gay cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain and the troubled L.A. teens drama Havoc, was she able to alter the public's image of her as America's next screen sweetheart a la Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan.

"What I put out there is not how to live a perfect life, but that it's okay to make mistakes," Hathaway, 23, recently told reporters.

"I'm not attempting to be a role model. But I accept that roles that I have played have put me in this position. I try to make decisions that I would be comfortable with my daughter knowing about. I make decisions that I don't mind telling my parents.

"But I don't feel a huge responsibility as an actress, honestly, to put my young fan base first. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make kids happy, but there's also nothing wrong with wanting to be an adult actress.

"A grown-up actress -- that sounded really bad!" she added with a laugh.

Hathaway's latest film is The Devil Wears Prada, the comedy set in the fashion world that opens in theatres tomorrow. It's rated PG, and won't exactly change her goofy, lovely image, but there is an oh-so-subtle shift.

Hathaway's character is a journalism school-educated, newly hired junior assistant to the tyrannical top fashion magazine editor in New York City, played by Meryl Streep.

Apparently, playing opposite Streep is something you never get used to.

Hathaway told David Letterman it was as if the ball girl at the U.S. Open got to play in the final.

"I would still be nervous working with her even if I were to do it again," Hathaway said. "Knowing her as I do now, as a person, she's just absolutely delightful. I couldn't say enough nice things about her. She's really, really extraordinary. Not to become too gushy or annoying, but just as a woman, she has absolutely done everything that I want to do. Everything that I could ever hope to accomplish, she has done better than anyone I've ever seen.

"So I respect her so much as a person," she said.

But playing opposite her as an actress, she said, "is taking a cold bath of terror every day," because she respected her formidable talent so much.

For her part, Streep said the biggest obstacle facing Hathaway -- who possesses saucer-shaped brown eyes, porcelain skin, a big beautiful mouth, long brown hair and has drawn comparisons to Roberts -- might be her looks.

"Her beauty is so stunning in this movie that when we all were watching the dailies we were all just (gasps), because it is amazing," said Streep at a press conference. "And that's a burden for actresses to try to work around that, because it so precedes her.

"But her own personality is so appealing and fresh and open and warm that I think she'll have a unique career. She's just a delicious talent and I think she can delight us for years and years in lots and lots of different things."

When Hathaway is told of Streep's beauty-related comments she reacts: "What? She's one to talk! It's certainly something I've never experienced. I've never been called too pretty for anything. I mean that's a problem I could get used to."

Hathaway's next film is starring as a young Jane Austen in Becoming Jane, co-starring James McEvoy (The Chronicles Of Narnia), Maggie Smith, and Julie Walters and directed by Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots).

"I'm really going to apply for 'life experience credit,' " said Hathaway, who is two years into a college education while juggling university semesters between her films.

"I figure I've been in so many movie adaptations, surely there's a films class on that that I've definitely aced. I know so much stuff about Jane Austen now."

And the young actress insisted, unlike her character in The Devil Wears Prada, that she has not had to make any compromises in her short career thus far.

"I don't really care about getting to the next level," said Hathaway, whose boyfriend is New York real estate developer Raffaello Follieri.

"I've been really lucky. When I look back on it, it was an amazing experience to have the very first movie I made gross $100 million dollars. I experienced that. I know what that's like. And you know what? I realized that you can't control that. And if you try to control that, you might be disappointed."

Her Princess Diaries director, Garry Marshall, gave her some great advice.

"You never know how a movie's going to do, so you'd better love the experience making it and you'd better be able to stand by it, even if it's sinking fast," recalled Hathaway.

"I've made films that went straight to the bottom of the ocean and I've made other films that became huge cultural statements and I'm proud of them all. I'm proud of some aspect of them. I don't believe in doing things just for the outside perception of getting to the next level.

"If I wanted to be famous, we could talk, but, for better or for worse, I'm an actress, and I want to be the best actress I can be.

"If that means sacrificing fame, it doesn't feel like a sacrifice."

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