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Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress. After several stage roles, she appeared in the 1999 television series Get Real. After it was cancelled, she played Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries (2001). Over the next three years, Hathaway reprised that role for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, and starred in family films, appearing as the title character in Ella Enchanted (both 2004).

Hathaway had more dramatic roles in Havoc and Brokeback Mountain (both 2005). She starred in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and appeared in Becoming Jane (2007) as Jane Austen. In 2008, she was acclaimed for her lead role in Rachel Getting Married, for which she won many awards and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2010, she starred in the box office hits Valentine's Day and Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland.

People magazine named her one of its breakthrough stars of 2001, and she first appeared on its list of the world's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2006.

Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York to Gerald Hathaway, a lawyer, and Kate (née McCauley), an actress who inspired Hathaway to follow in her footsteps. The family moved to Millburn, New Jersey when she was six years old. She has an older brother Michael and a younger brother Thomas. Hathaway has mainly Irish and French ancestry.

Hathaway was raised a Catholic with what she considered "really strong values," and has stated she wanted to be a nun during her childhood. However, at the age of 15, she decided not to become a nun after learning that her brother Michael was gay. Despite her Catholic upbringing, she felt she could not be part of a religion that condemned her brother's sexual orientation. In 2009, she stated that she was a non-denominational Christian because she had not "found the religion" for her and later stated her religious beliefs as "a work in progress".

As a child, Hathaway was in a Montessori program at Brooklyn Heights Montessori School as a preschooler and was then able to enter first grade at the Wyoming Elementary School in Millburn while she was technically still a kindergartner. Hathaway graduated from Millburn High School where she participated in many school plays; her high school performance as Winnifred in Once Upon a Mattress garnered her a Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Award nomination for Best Performance by a High School Actress. During this time, Hathaway was in plays including Jane Eyre and Gigi at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse (which is located in Millburn, across the street from Hathaway's middle school). She spent several semesters studying as an English major and Women's Studies minor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York before transferring to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, referring to her college enrollment as one of her best decisions, because she enjoyed being with others who were trying to "grow up". Hathaway was a member of the Barrow Group Theater Company's acting program and was the first teenager ever admitted into the program.

A soprano, Hathaway performed in 1998 and 1999 with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and has performed in plays at Seton Hall Prep in West Orange, New Jersey. Three days after her 1999 performance at Carnegie Hall, she was cast in the short-lived Fox television series Get Real at the age of 16.

Hathaway is a trained stage actress and has stated that she prefers performing on stage to film roles. Her acting style has been compared to Judy Garland and Audrey Hepburn. She cites Garland as one of her favorite actresses and Meryl Streep as her idol.

Hathaway's first role in a motion picture was as Jean Sabin in The Other Side of Heaven, opposite Christopher Gorham. Before production of Heaven began in New Zealand, she auditioned for the lead role of Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries, directed by Garry Marshall. Hathaway auditioned for the role during a flight layover on the way to New Zealand and won the role after only one audition. Marshall claimed that he loved her immediately because she fell off her chair during the audition and believed her clumsiness would make her perfect for the role. (However, in a 2008 conversation with Steve Carell, Hathaway denied that she fell during this audition, although she openly admits to being a "klutz".) The Princess Diaries was released before The Other Side of Heaven in the hopes that its success would increase interest in Heaven. Across the world, The Princess Diaries was a commercial success, and a sequel was planned shortly after. Many critics praised Hathaway's performance in Diaries; a BBC critic noted that "Hathaway shines in the title role and generates great chemistry." The Other Side of Heaven met with mostly negative reviews, but it performed well for a religion-themed film.