Anne Hathaway was the ninth choice to lead The Devil Wears Prada – here’s why others said no

It’s hard to imagine any other actors as Andy Sachs, especially now The Devil Wears Prada 2 is out. But she wasn’t the studio’s first choice for the part. She wasn’t even their eighth choice.

In a new interview with Capital, Anne Hathaway confirmed that she was the ninth choice for Andy, and the names of the other eight actors are “tattooed on [her] brain”. She didn’t spell the actors out. However, The Devil Wears Prada filmmakers have been pretty candid over the years about the project. Juliette Lewis and Clare Daines reportedly auditioned. The filmmakers told Entertainment Weekly they also considered Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Kirsten Dunst. Wow, that’s pretty much every American white woman who was famous in the 2000s!

Anne Hathaway continued: “I was just like, ‘Why is everyone turning down this amazing part in this amazing movie? I couldn’t figure it out. And so now I like to kid myself and think it was some kind of destiny.”

Destiny aside, some of these mystical eight A-list actors have actually detailed their reasons for turning down Anne Hathaway’s role in The Devil Wears Prada. Here are their excuses.

Kate Hudson didn’t reorganise her schedule

Kate Hudson was actually offered the role of Andy. However, she’d already committed to a part in the film You, Me and Dupree. It would have been tricky to fit both projects in.

She told Capital: that turning down the part in The Devil Wears Prada was “a bad call”. Kate Hudson explained: “It was a timing thing. It was one of those things where I couldn’t do it, and I should’ve made it happen, and I didn’t. That was one [project she rejected] where when I saw it, I was like, ‘Urgh!'”

Rachel McAdams wanted to be less mainstream

The studio was keen to have an A-list celeb lead the film. Remember, although Anne Hathaway seems legendary to us now, in 2005 she was mostly known for The Princess Diaries. She hadn’t been tested in as many gritty films for grown-ups. When the casting team were trying to lock down stars, Rachel McAdams had just slayed in Mean Girls and The Notebook.

The studio asked her to be Andy three times, but she kept refusing. According to Variety, at that point in her career, she wanted “to step away from mainstream material”. Woah, that’s such a Regina-coded move.

The actor then took a two-year career break instead. “I felt guilty for not capitalizing on the opportunity that I was being given,” she told Bustle, “because I knew I was in such a lucky spot. But I also knew it wasn’t quite jiving with my personality and what I needed to stay sane.”

For all the latest film and TV updates and hot takes, like our Facebook page.