Is The Idea of You About Harry Styles? Anne Hathaway Says…
Originally appeared on E! Online
Anne Hathaway is steering fans in a different direction when it comes to the inspiration behind The Idea of You.
While there's been speculation the film is a nod to Harry Styles, the Oscar winner recently insisted this isn't the case.
"No!" Anne told E! News during a joint conversation with costar Nicholas Galitzine at SXSW. "Everyone needs to chill. Sorry, I probably shouldn't be that reactive about it. I just think no." (For more from her interview, tune in to E! News March 19 at 11 p.m.).
In The Idea of You, based on Robinne Lee's book of the same name, Anne plays a 40-year-old art gallery owner named Solène who forms a romance with Nicholas' character Hayes Campbell—the 24-year-old lead singer of the boy band August Moon.
And if you think the plot still sounds like a reference to Harry, Nicholas also shut down this theory.
"It's funny," he noted, later adding, "just because it's become this thing in of itself. We have tried to distance ourselves from that, and I think Hayes is such a wonderful character in of himself. There were so many amazing references we used: BTS for a lot of the choreography, which was really great. There's so many references out there."
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When it comes to Solène, Anne said she had to give the role her all.
"I needed to bring everything to this one," the actress shared. "I really, really did. Things I don't like thinking about—you know, certain states that you're left in at the end of a disastrous relationship. You have to kind of go back there. And so certain things I usually just, ‘OK, I'm just going to pick up and carry on.' So, I just used everything, and it was great."
And ultimately, she has a lot of love for her character.
"The thing I kept focusing on is how lucky am I to have a character that can take this perspective," Anne said, "because she's not lost. She's not in a tailspin about, 'Where's my life going and how am I going to figure this out?' She's nurtured a lot of things in her life. She's raising a daughter, she's built a business. She made a great real estate call in the early aughts, and it was a good one. She's living in a really great neighborhood that she's connected to and has community with."
"So yeah, she doesn't have love, but she figures, ‘You know, I've got this beautiful life otherwise,'" Anne added. "And then, bam, in walks love. It's a little more complicated than that, but it's actually really not."
The Idea of You premieres on Prime Video May 2. To see more books that have recently inspired movies or TV series, keep reading.
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