Meryl Streep has revealed that Anne Hathaway made a direct intervention with producers of The Devil Wears Prada 2 over the body sizes of the models in the film, and got a promise that the casting would not look like what she witnessed on the real Milan Fashion Week runways.
speaks to Harper’s Bazaar in an interview published Wednesday, March 25, Streep, 76, described attending actual fashion shows during Milan Fashion Week as research for the sequel.
What she saw gave her pause.
“I was struck by how not only beautiful and young, everyone seems young to me, but also alarmingly thin the models were,” she said.
“I thought everything had been dealt with years ago.”
Hathaway, 43, apparently had the same reaction and acted on it immediately.
“Annie clocked it, too,” Streep continued, “and she quickly confronted the producers about it and secured promises that the models in the show that we put together for our movie wouldn’t be so skeletal!”
Streep’s verdict on her co-star was unequivocal: “She’s a stand-up girl.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Streep reflected on the extraordinary public response to filming the sequel on location in New York City last summer alongside returning cast members including Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci.
The level of attention caught even her off guard.
“Although we were aware of the impact of the first film two decades ago, I think none of us were prepared for the ambush of both good will and eager attention that engulfed us,” she said.
“We needed police barriers and crowd control.”
As for her acting approach, Streep confirmed that she has left method acting well behind. She recalled the misery of trying it out for the original film.
“I was [miserable] in my trailer. I could hear them all rocking and laughing. I was so depressed!” she shared Weekly entertainment in 2021. “That’s the last time I ever try a method thing.”
The The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens in theaters May 1.
