Way back in 2017, Hathaway was considering playing Barbie for Sony Pictures, with Alethea Jones circling to direct. The Oscar-winner says now, in hindsight, it’s a “lucky thing” that never happened.
Why? The actress says the team behind this year’s Barbie, “hit a bullseye.”
She continued, referencing her 2017 project, “Now imagine that version, that much energy, that much anticipation, that much emotion, but it’s not the right version.”
Hathaway offered her assessment on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast.
She was equally effusive in her praise for the woman who producer and eventual actual onscreen Barbie, Margot Robbie.
“Margot is just sublime, period. What she is doing as a creative person and a producer is so exciting and inspiring. And the mythic giants they toppled with [Barbie] that have kept certain narratives in place that have not allowed opportunities to develop for so many people. They ran straight through it, dancing, sparkling!
“Just as a cinema-goer and just as a woman in Hollywood since I was a kid, I’m thrilled by the development,” she added. “If I believed that the version I was attached to could have done that, yeah, I might feel differently about it, but I genuinely think their [film] was the best possible version. So it’s actually very easy to just be thrilled and happy [for them]. I’m also a person who loves watching women kill it. I just do, I just love it. And also, to do so well, so undeniably that they actually had to write new records, come on! … I think it’s probably going to make things better.”
