Anne Hathaway found it difficult to improvise on the set of her new movie The Hustle.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as a con artist in the remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and despite the name of the movie changing three times, she was immediately interested in the project.
However, Anne has now confessed that she found portraying cosmopolitan British woman Josephine Chesterfield to be just as challenging as playing troubled characters in serious films such as Rachel Getting Married and Les Miserables.
“Improv is not my strong suit, especially when trying to stay in an accent,” she shared in an interview with Variety. “I went from thinking this would be a fun comedy job where I got to wear lots of outfits and say really clever things about being mistreated by men, to being really hard work in two areas that don’t come easily to me.”
Anne was also daunted by the prospect of improvising scenes with Australian comedy actress, Rebel Wilson, who takes on the part of Penny Rust. Yet, the star is happy with the final result, and especially with the feminist aspect of the narrative.
“So many of her cons were about basically rising to the level of femininity that stupid men expect,” the 36-year-old explained. “It involved paying attention to the worst aspects of the male gaze then sending it up with hopefully hilarious results.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Anne spoke about how she has made a point of seeking out female directors such as Barbara Kopple, Nancy Meyers and Lone Scherfig over the course of her career.
And she believes the gender imbalance in Hollywood has changed significantly.
“You felt like you were screaming into the wind back then," she recalled. "There were so any harmful myths that were in place. It’s been such a satisfying thing the last year and a half to watch people collectively put those myths to rest. People are really walking the walk, at least the people I’m working with.”
