The actress, who got her big break in Disney’s The Princess Diaries, wasn’t viewed as conventionally sexy at the start of her Hollywood career.

Anne Hathaway looking at herself in the mirror in The Dark Knight Rises.

 Anne Hathaway was told had “zero sex appeal” as a young actress.
 Despite early doubts about her sex appeal, Hathaway has proven critics wrong, taking on more adult and confident roles in her career.
 Hathaway embraced challenging roles like the crime drama ” Havoc ” to convey deeper messages about her characters despite discomfort.

It’s hard to believe that anyone would question the sex appeal of Anne Hathaway today, but when the actress was breaking out following her role in Disney’s The Princess Diaries, the actress revealed that Hollywood viewed her as someone who had zero sex appeal. During an interview with Vanity Fair, Hathaway reveals that the power players in Hollywood declared that she had “zero sex appeal” as a young actress, something that she simply didn’t buy into, stating:

“I was like, ‘I’m a Scorpio. I know what I’m like on a Saturday night.”

The actress came to fame playing Mia Thermopolis in 2001’s The Princess Diaries when she was just 17 years old, and she admits that the industry had a narrow view of what was considered sexy back then compared to its view on it today. Hathaway went on to say:

“The male gaze was very dominant and very pervasive and very juvenile.”

Anne Hathaway Has More Than Proven Her Doubters Wrong

Anne Hathaway strikes a pose in Havoc Anne Hathaway looks serious in Havoc Anne Hathaway breaks into a safe as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises Anne Hathaway admires pearls in The Dark Knight Rises

Despite not being perceived as sexy early in her career, that didn’t stop Hathaway from taking on more adult and sexually charged roles. In 2005, she starred in the crime drama Havoc, which followed the lives of wealthy Los Angeles teenagers whose exposure to hip-hop culture inspires them to explore the gangster lifestyle, which makes them run into trouble when they get involved in the world of gangs and drug dealers. Hathaway, despite admitting that she hates doing nude scenes, did so in the 2005 film, which was a long way from her more tame Disney beginnings.

The actress ultimately decided that doing the scenes was necessary to “convey the fact that this girl I was playing had no respect for her body or her own sexual identity”, as she detailed during a GQ interview five years later.

Hathaway also exuded sex appeal and confidence when she took on the role of Selina Kyle in the final chapter of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. While she’s never officially called “Catwoman” in the film, it was the character she was taking on which allowed her to stand tall with other women that took on the part in the past, such as Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry.

Now that the actress is more mature, she admits that her feelings are much more important than how she feels about her physical appearance on screen. For her latest role, Hathaway is taking on the role of Solène, a single mother who engages in a relationship with a 24-year-old pop singer (Nicholas Galitzine), in The Idea of You. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Robinne Lee, the actress said she took on the role because it showed that it’s never too late for women to express sexuality and come of age.
“It’s not like one healthy, consensual female orgasm (okay, multiple) is going to change the world, but I’m really happy to be part of a story that takes pleasure in female pleasure.”