Anne Hathaway gave the Berlin Film Festival one of its buzziest red carpet looks of the night when she stepped out at the She Came to Me premiere in a black sheer netted column gown by Valentino. The 40-year-old actress also wore black opera-length gloves with her hair elegantly styled up.
This look is the latest in a very strong red carpet fashion run for Hathaway. It also comes as the actress has found more peace with herself and has stopped letting others’ opinions diminish her.
Hathaway, who was featured in ELLE’s Women in Hollywood issue this fall, spoke during the magazine’s Los Angeles event celebrating her and her fellow honorees about how the “Hathahate” of the past affected her.
“In my opinion, that the language of hatred begins with the self,” she started. “Thank you for letting me go there. I felt it was important to bring this concept up because I recently overheard a little girl, like age 8 to 11, telling her mother in a parking lot that her friend—who I assume is also a little girl—hated her own mouth. And I really felt for that young, young little girl experiencing the first flush self-hatred, which is something I’m sure a lot of us understand. And we don’t have enough time to discuss all the myriad causes of the violent language of hatred, and the imperative need to end it.”
“Ten years ago, I was given an opportunity to look at the language of hatred from a new perspective,” she continued. “For context—this was a language I had employed with myself since I was 7. And when your self-inflicted pain is suddenly somehow amplified back at you at, say, the full volume of the internet… It’s a thing.”
“When it happened to me, I realized that this wasn’t it. This wasn’t the spot,” she said. “When what happened, happened, I realized I had no desire to have anything to do with this line of energy. On any level. I would no longer create art from this place. I would no longer hold space for it, live in fear of it, nor speak its language for any reason. To anyone. Including myself. Because there is a difference between existence and behavior. You can judge behavior. You can forgive behavior or not. But you do not have the right to judge—and especially not hate—someone for existing. And if you do, you’re not where it’s at.”
“Hate seems to me to be the opposite of life; in soil that harsh, nothing can grow properly, if at all,” she added. “And I feel this is what we are talking about when we talk about culture. We are essentially talking about the soil that our collective and personal roots take hold in. And as the mother of young children—which means someone who has spent the last six years around young children—I am of the firm belief that we are born experiencing love. And then we form, in a culture of misplaced hate, unhealed hurt, and the toxicity that is the byproduct of both.”
“This next point is debatable, and I hope it is not offensive in its optimism, but: I believe the good news about hate being learned is that whoever learned it can learn,” she furthered “There is a brain there. I hope they give themselves a chance to relearn love.”
Senior News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.