Anne Hathaway wants us to know that, despite some press reports, Ang Lee (her director in Brokeback Mountain) did not convince her to take the role of Jane Austen in Becoming Jane.
Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway says Oscar-winning director Ang Lee did not convince her to play Jane Austen in Julian Jarrold’s new film, Becoming Jane.
Published reports have claimed Lee, Hathaway’s director on Brokeback Mountain, talked her into taking on the role of the iconic British author.
No! I don’t know where this rumor got out, Hathaway told UPI in New York Saturday. I adore Ang, but what I said was, ‘I’m doing this project, do you think it’s a good idea?’ And he said, ‘Yes, and you know what the most important part is?’ And I said, ‘The accent?’ And he said, ‘No, the curtsy.’
Hathaway said this conversation with the Taiwanese director, who previously adapted Austen’s Sense and Sensibility for the big screen, took place at last year’s Golden Globe Awards. She said the exchange ended with Lee asking her to demonstrate her curtsy.
So I did it and I did it wrong, of course, because Ang is brilliant and everything I do is wrong, so he taught me how to curtsy and I saw George Clooney look over and say, ‘What are you doing?’ So it was a pretty glamorous moment.”
We wanted to make sure to post this, because we know how terrible it would be for the public to see an anecdote in the paper that wasn’t true; a Made Up Story, if you will.
Redbook magazine has offered AustenBlog readers an opportunity to submit questions for cast members of the Jane Austen Book Club about the book and the film, to get some insight from the actors after playing the characters in the book. The answers will be published in the October issue of Redbook. They are looking for “questions about the plot, the characters, or anything else TJABC-related. Think along the lines of questions you’d like to discuss with your own book club.”
