Anne Hathaway Blames ‘Internalized Misogyny’ for Her Distrust of Female Directors

Oscar-winning actress Anne Hathaway says she is scared that she treated a female movie director whom she worked in the past with “internalized misogyny.”

In an interview with ABC News, Hathaway said that while working with director Lone Scherfig on the 2011 movie One Day, she feared she did not trust Scherfig because she was a woman.

“I really regret not trusting her more easily,” Hathaway said. “And I am to this day scared that the reason I didn’t trust her the way I trust some of the other directors I work with is because she’s a woman.”

“I’m so scared that I treated her with internalized misogyny,” Hathaway continued. “I’m scared that I didn’t give her everything that she needed or … I was resisting her on some level. It’s something that I’ve thought a lot about in terms of when I get scripts to be directed by women.”

Hathaway said she never apologized to Scherfig, telling ABC News that she was going to call her after the interview and do just that.

“I’ve never apologized to her about it,” Hathaway said. “It wasn’t an issue of professionalism, it wasn’t an issue of … nothing. I hold her in such a dear place in my heart and I think she does for me too.”

Hathaway also said that when she receives a script from a male director and a female director, she always thought about them much differently.

“When I get a script, when I see a first film directed by a woman, I have in the past focused on what was wrong with it,” Hathaway said. “And when I see a film … directed by a man, I focus on what’s right with it. I can only acknowledge that I’ve done that and I don’t want to do that anymore … I, before I realized this, had actively tried to work with female directors. And I still had this mindset buried in there somewhere.”

In an interview with Elle earlier this year, Hathaway called out the film industry for what she said was its double standards with regard to women.

“Hollywood is not a place of equality,” she said then. “I don’t say that with anger or judgement; it’s a statistical fact.”