Anne Hathaway Once Disagreed With Madonna Calling ‘Brokeback Mountain’ ‘Shocking’
Actor Anne Hathaway once co-starred in the 2005 movie Brokeback Mountain alongside Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. At the time, some saw the film as both risky and controversial because of its subject matter. Madonna was one fan who thought Brokeback was shocking in its depiction of LGBT romance.
But Hathaway didn’t agree that the film was shocking at all.
Madonna once shared she found ‘Brokeback Mountain’ shocking
As many know, Brokeback Mountain was a 2005 romance drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as lovers grappling with their sexuality. Madonna didn’t mince words about how much she enjoyed the film and sang the praises of those who were involved.
“I love it. Shocking. Surprising. The guy who financed my movie did that too. He’s a very mild-mannered chap from Minnesota and we’d just screened the latest cut of my film and he asked if I had wanted to see it. I was thinking ‘Ok, this really straight, square guy’ and he showed me this movie. It’s amazing,” she once told Attitude. “They’re really good those boys and they did a great job. It’s very brave of them.”
Anne Hathaway disagreed with Madonna calling the film ‘shocking’
Hathaway starred in Brokeback Mountain alongside Gyllenhaal and Ledger. The Oscar-winner would eventually catch wind of Madonna’s comments and was excited that the megastar saw the film at all.
“Madonna said it’s shocking? Madonna saw the film? I didn’t get that memo! I want to know what the Material Mom sees,” she once quipped to Chud.
But at the time, Hathaway also disagreed with Madonna’s sentiments that Brokeback Mountain was shocking.
“What I like about it is that it’s pretty evenly distributed across the film, with both men and women,” Hathaway said. “Usually us girls bear the unfair share of it. I didn’t think it was very shocking. I thought it was very real and tastefully done.”
Hathaway also felt some of the reactions towards the movie’s sex scenes were a bit exaggerated.
“I think it’s really overhyped,” she added. “I think the thing that emerges from the film is [they] have such love for each other that even as their sexual relationship slackens their intimacy deepens.”
Anne Hathaway made it clear that she didn’t take ‘Brokeback Mountain’ to avoid being typecast
Before films like Brokeback Mountain and Havoc, Hathaway was known for starring in much lighter projects like The Princess Diaries. Then in her 20s, Hathaway was asked if taking on much darker roles was her way of telling audiences she’d grown up. An idea that she took offense to.
“Come on, you think I would do anything that obvious? That’s pathetic,” Hathaway said.
She asserted that her change in content was simply a way to add variety to her career.
“I haven’t done that many movies. I wanted to wait and find roles that moved me. It’s interesting because when I was 20 I was still interested in doing the female empowerment, heroine stories. But after that it was like, wait a minute, let’s go to a new place,” she said. “I went through so much in my own life in between the roles that made me grow that it had nothing to do with trying to escape an image, or being typecast. It had to do with doing stuff I believed in at that moment.”
The Dark Knight Rises star didn’t feel it was possible for her to be typecasted anyway because of her range.
“I never give any credit to the theory of typecasting because I knew who I was before I made The Princess Diaries, and I knew what I had to offer. I knew that I could always offer more than that film,” she said.
