Anne Getting Serious

Anne Hathaway seemed immensely proud of herself but also reluctant, initially, to make too big a deal of her experience filming the family dramedy "Rachel Getting Married." The loosely staged movie -- which follows a New England family over the course of an emotionally wrought weekend of nuptial revelry -- came out last month and has been generating the earliest of early Oscar buzz for Hathaway ever since.

Seated in the garden patio of a Beverly Hills hotel, the former 'tween icon spoke self-deprecatingly of her "great, spooky, unspoken" connection with "Rachel" director Jonathan Demme. She also detailed how staying in character for the duration of the shoot was "liberating" because it enabled her to concentrate on nothing other than being in the moment. And at one point, Hathaway chided herself for "sounding a little crazy" to take it all so seriously.

But once she got started discussing what she had learned about herself while inhabiting the role -- a recovering addict-alcoholic named Kym who checks out of rehab to attend her sister's wedding, arriving with no small amount of psychological baggage -- the 25-year-old actress (whose early image as a wholesome ingenue was cemented with two "Princess Diaries" films) could barely curb her enthusiasm.

"I've done films where I hung my head in shame about my work," Hathaway said. "But this was an entirely satisfying experience. The experience I imagined as a child when I wanted to get into acting: total immersion in character, laser focus on it, going off with a tribe of artists to tell a story. It was a dream every step of the way."

She recalled the film's documentary-like shoot -- specifically, the esprit de corps of its ensemble cast, a crazy quilt of rock stars and documentarians, slam poets and hip-hop pioneers. Hathaway looked casual in a pair of jeans, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing no makeup. Relating how she was never sure when the camera was on or off of her, Hathaway began making her points with vivid physical pantomime.

At one juncture in the conversation, she waved her index finger and pinkie around -- heavy metal-style -- shouting "Professional anarchy in film!" (the idea being that her willingness to play an "unlikable" character was akin to "punk rock"). And at another point, Hathaway mimicked an out-of-breath distance runner stooped by fatigue (this to illustrate Kym's weary wherewithal to carry on in the face of a family tragedy that her loved ones hold Kym explicitly responsible for, the literal bane of her existence). Then Hathaway grew teary. But more on that later.