BLOOMING!

Shes adored by fans and loathed by haters, but like the character she plays in her new movie, Anne Hathaway says shes putting her own Joy first

- NICIDE WET

SHE was the kind of woman people loved to loathe – she was too pretty, too perfect, too happy, too try-hard, too much of a smarty-pants.

One critic branded her the cheerleader of princessy theatre-schooled girls who had no sex appeal and “ate raisins for dessert”.

The anti-Anne Hathaway brigade even had a name – the Hathahaters – and there were articles dedicated to the negativity with titles such as “Why everyone hates Anne Hathaway”.

Hathahate peaked after she won an Oscar for Les Misérables in 2013 and people attacked her “annoying demeanour” and said she looked “disinterested in stardom”.

Shame, poor Anne. Playing the dying prostitute in Les Mis was a lot – all those lines and all that singing and people just dump on you?

Still, she didn’t run away and lick her wounds. In the 10 years since her Oscar gong she’s brought out at least one movie a year and covered every genre from action, animation and sci-fi to romance, comedy and thriller.

She’s still going strong. Anne stars in the new movie The Idea of You, play-ing a 40-year-old woman who falls for a younger guy –and the buzz has been huge.

It broke the record as the most-watched trailer for a streaming film when it reached 125 million views. Anne’s performance in the film, which is on Prime Video, has been largely praised, although doubters will always doubt.

Would she be realistic in this role, people asked? Would a 20-something guy really fall for her?

Anne (41) refused to be cowed. “I don’t want to be pigeonholed and I don’t want to be placed in a box of what type of films I have to be making because of my age, gender and because I won an Oscar,” she says. “This movie speaks to me.”