What's Not to Love?

A few years ago, Anne Hathaway was winning an Oscar and fending off Internet mean girls. Now she’s winning at familial bliss and, in her new film, Colossal, warring with a Seoul-crushing monster. The more things change.... By Lauren Waterman

- Lauren Waterman

Sure, blondes might have more fun. But it’s an indisputable fact that brunettes, even the most recognizable among them, have an easier time blending in. Take Anne Hathaway: Dressed in black pants, a black sweater, and a black coat, hiding her distinctive oversize eyes behind a pair of significantly less distinctive oversize sunglasses, she’s able to make her way through a packed Tribeca restaurant without turning a single head.

Of course, the illusion of anonymity only lasts so long. Once the actress, 34, takes a seat in the corner and starts shedding her layers, the surreptitious glances begin. Features like hers—the beguiling eyes, the strong brows, the mouth both wide and full-lipped—tend to attract attention. But, as glamorous as she can be, that’s not her vibe today. Instead, makeup-free, she seems downright delicate—not fragile, exactly, but fine-boned, lovely, even wholesome.

In fact, there’s only one ostentatious, starry thing about her: her long, fake, French-manicured fingernails, which she soon explains are for her role as an actress in the rapturously awaited, female-led Ocean’s Eleven spin-off, Ocean’s Eight. “Everyone says they don’t look like me,” she says. “Yesterday, at the [ELLE] shoot, my makeup artist told me it looks like alien hands have been photo shopped onto my body.”

She’s a bit tired, she says, the combined result of circumstances both professional (she’s filming at night) and personal (she has a son, Jonathan, who was born last March). But when I remind her that I’ve interviewed her twice before, she claps. “Oh, this is going to be fun,” she says, “to meet ourselves again and see how we have changed.”