Anne Hathaway Opens up About Her ‘Really Difficult Times’ on Her Journey to Motherhood
Beneath Anne Hathaway’s iconic smile holds a well of pain as she reflects on her journey to motherhood. The Idea of You star was this month’s cover model for Vogue France, where she reflected on the “really difficult times” she had before becoming a mom to sons Jonathan, 8, and Jack, 4, with husband Adam Shulman.
“I always wanted to be a mother. I felt it at a very young age,” Hathaway told the outlet. “I also knew that I wanted to fully invest in my career, so I waited until I was in my thirties to have 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren. I had set myself the goal of reaching a certain professional level, before juggling both.”
When asked if she was worried about balancing a career and kids, she revealed that she was more worried about how she would feel if she didn’t have kids. “What worried me was not having 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren, but being able to recover if I didn’t,” she explained. “Because I dreamed of it. And since my pregnancies didn’t all work out, I went through some really difficult times.”
The Devil Wears Prada star revealed in a March interview with Vanity Fair that she experienced a miscarriage during her one-woman off-Broadway show of Grounded. “The first time [I got pregnant] it didn’t work out for me,” Hathaway said. “I was doing a play and I had to give 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡 onstage every night. It was too much to keep it in when I was onstage pretending everything was fine. I had to keep it real otherwise …”
“So when it did go well for me, having been on the other side of it — where you have to have the grace to be happy for someone — I wanted to let my sisters know, ‘You don’t have to always be graceful. I see you and I’ve been you,’” she continued, with the grace of someone who once played the Queen of Genovia. “It’s really hard to want something so much and to wonder if you’re doing something wrong.” Hathaway added, “So I decided that I was going to talk about it. The thing that broke my heart, blew my mind, and gave me hope was that for three years after, almost daily, a woman came up to me in tears and I would just hold her, because she was carrying this [pain] around and suddenly it wasn’t all hers anymore.”
Now, things are in a better place. Hathaway told Vogue France, “I thank heavens that I now live with two wonderful little boys who light up our lives. As for the reproaches they will have to make to me, go ahead, guys! I think I do a good job, but of course every parent makes mistakes. I will only find out when they are 22 and start seeing a shrink!”
