Anne Hathaway Has Regrets About Her Name
-My first guest is an Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe winner, starring in the new movie “Locked Down,” which premieres this Thursday on HBO Max. Here is Anne Hathaway! Oh, that’s what I’m talking about.
Anne, welcome back to “The Tonight Show.” You look fantastic. Thank you so much
for coming on the show.
-Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here.
-I’ve known you for a pretty long time now.
-Mm-hmm.
-I’ve heard people call you Annie, like, your good friends. Do I call you Anne or Annie?
-Call me Annie.
-Yeah.
-Everybody. Everybody, call me Annie, please. It’s — Can we talk about my name for a second?
– Yeah, of course. I’d love to.
– Okay. Can we — Can we really get — Let’s spill the tea. So, I — You know, when I was 14 years old, I did a commercial
and I had to get my SAG card. And they asked me, “What do you want your name to be?” And I’m like, “Well, it should be my name. My name is Anne Hathaway.” Like — And I never — And so that seemed like the right choice, but it never occurred to me that, for the rest of my life, people would call me Anne. The only person who ever calls me Anne is my mother, and she only does it when she’s really mad at me. Like, really mad.
-Yeah, I know that.
-And so every time, like, I step out in public and someone calls my name, I think they’re going to yell at me.
-Yeah. My mom would say my middle name. “James Thomas!”
-So, is — But I doubt people are just like, “James Thomas! How are you? Loved your last film.” People are like, “Anne.”
I’m like, “What? What did I do?”
-“No, I’m Annie!”
-And so, please, seriously, just feel free. It’s not — People are so lovely. They don’t want to be presumptuous. And so they come up with workarounds on set because the truth is, nobody is comfortable calling me Anne ever. It doesn’t fit. I’m an Annie. And so people call me, like, “Miss H.” People call me “Hath.” So feel free, call me anything but Anne.
– Well, Annie, congrats, by the way. Since the last time you were here, you had another baby. You have two beautiful boys right now. Congratulations. How old are they?
-They’re 4 and they’re 1.
– Oh, my gosh. During quarantine? Has it been crazy? Just perfect.
– What hasn’t been crazy? Like, yes, like, on the list of things that are crazy — It’s been a lot. But, I mean, those are good ages to be home with your kids, because, you know, our 4-year-old believes everything we tell him. And that’s adorable, as well as very useful. And our 1-year-old is just, like — It’s just the most magic age. You know, we’ve just been home with him since he was 4 months old, just with him every single day, and that’s been a gift.
– Yeah, that’s pretty wild.
– But the 4-year-old — Did you, like, tell your kids everything when they were 4, like, to kind of get them to do what
you wanted them to do?
– Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, sure, whatever. I still kind of do it, yeah. I’ll just go, “We’ll do that, and then we’ll get this.” But, yeah, I mean, I was — When they were really babies, I was trying to get Winnie to say “dada” so hard, to make that her first word.
– We know. We know, Jimmy.
– Do I have the book around? I don’t. But if I did — -Well, I have the book, and it works, darn it.
– Dude, I was calling everything “dada.” I was calling the bottle —
-You jerk. You jerk.
– Really? I was calling the bottle of milk “dada.”
– We should have talked about this before so I could really let you know how I feel.
– I also put out “mama.” I have “mama.” You got to read that book.
– You didn’t send that one to me, sweetie.
– Oh, you know what? Quarantine. It’s in the mail.
– Oh, yeah. No, no. Of course. I understand. I have to. I have to understand.
-“I have to understand.”
– But my 4-year-old — it’s the best, because over the holidays, like, this was the first year he’s really believed in Santa Claus. And we were driving in the car, and you know when, like, you’re in the car with your kids, and, suddenly, the car just gets too hot?
-Yes.
-Like, all of a sudden, like, in a second, and everybody gets, like, loud at the same moment. And the baby is crying
because he wants the cracker that the 4-year-old has, and 4-year-old will not give him a cracker.
– Yeah.
– And, like, just won’t do it, won’t do it, won’t do it. And then, finally, I just have this spark and I go, “Okay, Johnny,
but what about Santa?” Like, his hand shot out straight towards me. I had the entire box of crackers suddenly. There was no argument. And Adam and I turned to each other, and we went, “Oh, my God, this is so powerful.”
– Wow. What did we just — That’s right. So, 4 and 1, you know, the ages are the ages that they are, but there’s a lot of
magic in those ages.
– This — You know, I tried not to do Elf on the Shelf, just ’cause I go, “I don’t know. I have enough things to worry about, you know, and to have the Elf on the Shelf thing.” And you want to hear the weirdest thing? It showed up in my house. We do it now.
-What do you mean?
– The elf is in my — Somehow — I don’t know how we got it, but the Elf on the Shelf is now in my house, and it does stuff every holiday.
– We had to come up with something, because, like, Johnny would leave the room, and then Jack would mess with his stuff. And Johnny would come back and be like, “Who messed with my stuff?” And we came up with the demolition elves.
– What? Oh, interesting.
– So at nighttime — at nighttime, after he went to bed, the demolition elves messed with his stuff. There’s nothing we could do about it. Like, “No, it certainly wasn’t your brother, who you’re now going to whale on — now you’re
not going to whale on.”
– I want to talk about your new movie, “Locked Down,” because it’s so —
– You’re saying that very well.
– Thank you. Well, I don’t want say it’s — It’s not “Lockdown.” It’s —
– It’s not “Lockdown.” It’s “Locked Down.” You’re right — I guess you do have to kind of —
– I just wanted to make sure people can hear the title.
– Honestly, have a glass a wine before you watch the movie, it’ll be “Lockdown.”
-“Lockdown.”
-“Lockdown.” “Babe, honey, let’s just watch it. I don’t care.”
– Let’s just watch “Lockdown.” I don’t know. It’s on HBO Max.
– HBO Max? Yeah, we have that.
-Yeah, sure. It’s one word. Who cares? “Lockdown.” It’s a fun heist movie, but, also, there’s a little love in there. And funny. I thought it was fantastic. How do you describe the movie?
-The story — So, I act in it — It’s directed by Doug Liman. So if you’re a fan of Doug Liman movies, you know to expect a lot and many different wonderful things. And I act opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is just a dream. Oh, my God. He’s amazing. And wonderful in this. And he’s never played a part like this before. And we play two people in a long-term relationship that has run its course. And the day after we have our, like, can’t-take-it-back, end-it-all rager of a fight, my character gets a call that one of my co-workers is experiencing symptoms, and we are now to be locked down with each other for 14 days in quarantine. And we sort of lose our minds, find each other, and then somehow decide to
steal a £3 million diamond from a mass murderer.
– And how did you even get Harrods to play?
– So, the climax of the movie takes place in Harrods. I don’t know… it is the short of it. I think it’s this 2020 thing, because Doug and Steven had 40 pages that they said, “We’ve got 40 pages, an idea, but if you don’t say yes to our needing to shoot the finale of the movie in your store, there’s no point in us making it. So can we get a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?” And Harrods said yes. And you would expect them to be like, “We have to call our lawyers. We have to run it through this. We have to do market research.” But it was 2020, and they were like, “You know what? Why not?”
-It’s legendary. It’s Harrods. Come on. Anyways, I want to show a clip. Here is Anne Hathaway in “Locked Down.” Take a look at this.
– £3 million, tax-free, no consequences.
-One for me, one for you, one for the NHS.
-You have thought about this.
-You know, I need to go meditate.
-Well, are you sure they won’t check it in New York?
-Shut up! I need to meditate.
-No, what were you gonna say?
-The man who bought the diamond is bad. He’s really bad, and you and I are good. And the NHS is good, and good is better than bad. And when I explained all that to grandma, even she said, “Well, yeah, that’s true.” And she was a Calvinist, straight as a rod, unlike me, who is weak in the face of temptation.
-Live wild or die, Linda.
-Anne Hathaway, everybody. “Locked Down” premieres this Thursday on HBO Max.
