The Oscar winner accepts that she once benefitted from the film industry’s attitudes I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice
It’s pretty clear by now that Hollywood is a sexist, ageist place to be an actress, but Anne Hathaway probably wasn’t expecting to feel its sting as young as 32.

The Oscar-winning star of Les Miserables has been left wondering why newcomers eight years her junior have been beating her to older roles, but knows that she once used the film industry’s favouritism of rising stars to her advantage too.

“I can’t complain about it because I benefitted from it. When I was in my early twenties, parts would be written for women in their fifties and I would get them,” she told Glamour. “Now I’m in my early thirties and I’m like, ‘Why did that 24-year-old get that part? I was that 24-year-old once. I can’t be upset about it, it’s the way things are.”

Anne Hathaway with Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables
Anne Hathaway with Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables
Hathaway insists that instead of letting Hollywood’s attitudes get her down, she remembers that she has experience and a solid reputation on her side.

“All I can do right now is think that thankfully you have built up perhaps a little bit of cachet and can tell stories that interest you and if people go to see them you’ll be allowed to make more,” she said.

Oscars predictions
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Cate Blanchetts next movie was first tipped as an Oscars contender at Cannes, where it received glowing reviews and won her co-star Rooney Mara the Best Actress gong. Both actresses are early favourites. as is the film itself, about a woman in a loveless marriage who sparks a connection with a 20-something department store clerk. Features a stellar score, too.
Not just any film, but the film that might just prove seventh time lucky for Leonardo DiCaprio. ‘Poor Leo’ has been nominated again and again without taking home a golden man but, as a 19th century fur trapper hellbent on revenge, he’ll be hoping for glory next February. Last year’s Best Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is behind the camera and the first trailer looks gritty and awesome.
Jennifer Lawrence is set to be back in the front row at next year’s ceremony with a nomination for Joy. The previous Best Actress winner plays a single mother turned multi-millionaire businesswoman in David O’Russell’s biopic of Miracle Mop creator Joy Mangano. Out at Christmas, just in time for peak Oscars buzz.
Baltasar Kormákur’s disaster thriller about the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster is set to open Venice next month, where previous titles selected to kick off the film festival have included Oscar winners Birdman and Gravity. The star-studded cast also bodes well for what looks set to be one of the biggest films of the autumn, including Jake Gyllenhaal, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson, Robin Wright, Josh Brolin and Sam Worthington.
Hathaway’s tone seems more resigned than that of older actresses who have recently spoken about ageism, including Helen Mirren, Emma Thompson and Maggie Gyllenhaal, the latter of whom was deemed too old at 37 to play a 55-year-old man’s lover.

Thompson was asked by Vulture earlier this week what she thought of older men dating much younger women in films. “The age thing is insane. It was ever thus,” she said. “I remember saying years and years ago, when I was 35, that they’d have to exhume somebody to play my leading man. Nothing’s changed in that regard. If anything, it’s got worse.

“I remember someone saying to me that I was too old for Hugh Grant, who’s like a year younger than me, in Sense and Sensibility. I said, ‘Do you want to go take a flying leap?”