During the promotion of the 2012 musical thriller Les Misérables, Anne Hathaway had a conversation with Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa. Hathaway’s dismissive and monosyllabic answers during the interview resurfaced on TikTok and went viral. As a result, the actress from The Idea of You provided an explanation in response to the renewed attention.
In the video shared by the journalist, she explained her idea of singing her questions with the hope that the actors would tunely respond. However, Hathaway did not participate in the sing-along and had rather flat answers to her questions. “Do you think love was more passionate back then?” Flaa asked. “No,” Hathaway replied.
The clip garnered 10 million views on TikTok and apparently reached the Devil Wears Prada actress herself. In a YouTube update, Flaa revealed that she’d received a forwarded email from Hathaway’s publicist where she apologized for their interaction 12 years ago.
“She sent me a long email explaining to me what she was going through right then and she apologized for giving me an awful interview,” Flaa said. Adding that talking about the email makes her teary-eyed, the journalist revealed that the letter was “touching” and “very personal.” However, she refused to reveal the letter’s contents, as per their agreement.
The old interview was controversial even back then. As revealed by the journalist in the original YouTube video, Hathaway was abused online in the early 2010s after the awkward interview was uploaded. Moreover, a studio executive asked her to take down the video or risk being blacklisted; she chose to remove the interview from her channel.
Previously, another one of Flaa’s interview clips went viral and it was from her conversation with the It Ends With Us actress Blake Lively. “The most uncomfortable interview situation I have ever experienced,” Flaa wrote, describing the interview.
Hathaway recently starred in a rom-com titled The Idea of You in which she romanced a younger actor Nicholas Galitzine who’s been ruling over the genre with several hits like Purple Hearts, Red, White and Royal Blue, etc. Most recently, Hathaway confirmed through an Instagram post that her cult classic debut film Disney’s The Princess Diaries will have a third sequel.
