Anne Hathaway Is Happy Margot Robbie Replaced Her In Barbie
“I actually think of it as a lucky thing.”
Before Margot Robbie was behind the wheel of Barbie’s bright pink convertible, it was actually Anne Hathaway who was going to be in the driver’s seat. The Devil Wear Prada star was in talks to play the title role in Barbie, but due to some studio drama, she lost out on the role to Robbie. But Hathaway is far from upset about the casting change. Actually, she’s thrilled Robbie took over the project, admitting the Barbie movie she was involved in just was “not the right version.”
Hathaway was attached to star in Barbie when Sony had the movie rights back in 2017. The next year, Sony lost the film rights to the Barbie brand, and when Warner Bros. scooped up the rights, Robbie came on as the new star, along with producing the film under her production company LuckyChap Entertainment.
Hathaway looks back on the changeover now as a “lucky thing,” she admitted on the Dec. 11 episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “They hit a bullseye,” Hathaway said in praise of the 2023 blockbuster. “The bullseye caused the entire world to reach this level of ecstasy. Now imagine that version, that much energy, that much anticipation, that much emotion, but it’s not the right version. So I actually think of it as a lucky thing [the Sony movie didn’t get developed].”
“Margot is just sublime, period,” Hathaway gushed. “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!”
Hathaway continued, sharing she didn’t have that much faith Sony’s Barbie movie could achieve what Robbie’s has. “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,” she admitted.
The sentiment echoes recent remarks made by another would-be Barbie. Amy Schumer was the first actor attached to star in Sony’s Barbie movie, before she dropped out in 2017. Schumer revealed earlier this year that she left the movie due to creative differences, signaling that the initial project didn’t feel feminist to her.
