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From her early role in The Princess Diaries to her spellbinding performance in Rachel Getting Married, Anne Hathaway is living her own Hollywood fairy tale.

"BUZZ"

IS ONE OF THOSE PESKY WORDS that gets overused a lot in these days of tabloid-mania, but it doesn't even come close to describing the roar of accolades that have recently surrounded Anne Hathaway. Critics, peers and audiences alike were enraptured by the 26-year-old's masterful performance in director Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, which shows a stunning maturation for the actress best known for her work in The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada.

As recovering addict Kym-who comes home from rehab to inject some dysfunctional drama into her sister's nuptials-Hathaway delivers an edgy performance that makes you reconsider everything you previously thought about her. The role has virtually locked her in for her first Academy Award nomination. Hathaway, who will be starring in this month's Bride Wars (with Kate Hudson) and recently signed on to appear in Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, sat down to discuss being a role model, her future in Hollywood and moving past her princess persona.

WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP, WHICH ACTRESSES DID YOU ADMIRE? "Julia Roberts. I used to watch Pretty Woman every day. Katharine Hepburn has always been one of my favorites, and Jessica Lange and Sigourney Weaver. There are a lot. I would never go to see a movie just because someone was in it, but the closest person I've ever had like that is Drew Barrymore... I just adore her. I met her, and I was so starstruck."

DO YOU FEEL ANY RESPONSIBILITY TO BE A ROLE MODEL FOR YOUNG WOMEN? "I'm just a person living my life, but I do understand that some of the characters I play are very good role models. They're smart and in possession of their lives, and I do have a lot in common with them, so I don't mind being seen as a role model. But it's not something that I have ever aspired to be or courted. I think the second you say, 'I'm a role model, and that's why I make the decisions that I make,' you've kind of shot yourself in the foot. A role model is somebody who does things because of what they believe in, regardless of what other people think."

WHAT HAS SURPRISED YOU MOST ABOUT YOUR CAREER? "I'm genuinely surprised that I keep getting asked back."

WHY? "Well, because I'm an actor, so I'm horrifically insecure (laughs). All of this has been a surprise. When I was 14 years old and dreaming of being an actress... I didn't know this was how it was done. I didn't know this was possible. My idea of being an actor was understudying the lead in a Broadway show, having student loans, living with five other dancers and waitressing on the side. Th at was my understanding of what an actress was, and for a lot of people, that's what being an actress is. So, right now I'm existing in a stratosphere that I find very surprising."

YOU BECAME FAMOUS WHEN YOU WERE SO YOUNG-JUST 19 YEARS OLD. WHAT KEEPS YOU GROUNDED? "Gravity. I'd like to think part of it is just me not being [mean]. But I have to give my family credit. I come from salt-of-the-earth people. Their lives haven't changed since their daughter or niece or cousin became a well-known actress, and they still go about their own routines. I want to be a source of surprise for them, not a source of shame. So that's a big part of it."

YOU'VE WORKED WITH SOME INCREDIBLE DIRECTORS. WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN LIKE? "Garry Marshall (The Princess Diaries) was the best first director to have. He was so loving and saw the very raw talent in me and edited the movie together so I came across as a much more polished actress than I was at the time. Flash forward to Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain). I never really talk about this, but it was difficult, for many years, to think, 'Have I peaked? Am I only going to be the girl from The Princess Diaries?' Then Ang Lee said, 'I see you as something else.' That was not only amazing for me to develop as an actress, but also psychologically, for my ego. David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) helped me come off as a woman. And as much as I love everyone I've worked with, I have never trusted anyone as much as I trust Jonathan Demme, so I'm really excited for where I'm going to go with Rachel Getting Married."

YOUR ROLE IN DEMME'S FILM WAS SO DIFFERENT FROM ANYTHING ELSE YOU'VE DONE. DID YOU TAKE IT IN ORDER TO CHANGE PEOPLE'S PERCEPTIONS? "No, I've been saying since The Princess Diaries that I was not going to do any performances in reaction to it. I don't perceive myself in that way, even though I understand that that may be how other people perceive me. I don't think of myself as a celebrity, I think of myself as an actress, so it's always been about finding interesting material. I knew eventually I would find a story that would really put the tiara on the shelf for everyone else, because it's been on the shelf for me ever since I made the first Princess Diaries."

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED HAS A VERY ORGANIC STYLE, ALMOST LIKE A HOME VIDEO. DID THAT AFFECT THE WAY YOU APPROACHED YOUR ROLE? "I didn't approach the creation and study and absorption of the character in any diff erent way, because my process has always been fairly fluid and similar from film to film. I've always relied primarily on instinct, combined with tons and tons of research. But for Rachel Getting Married, I did let go of the idea that I have any say as a filmmaker. Sometimes when a director comes over and says, 'OK, we're going to do this shot and this shot,' you try to help the director out by saving your best stuff for the close-up or whatever. You start editing the movie in your head, which you shouldn't do, but I'm a reformed people-pleaser (laughs). With that film, not knowing where the camera was going to be freed me to just be the character. It was incredibly liberating, and it changed my approach to acting."

WHAT WAS IT LIKE GOING FROM SUCH AN INTIMATE PROJECT TO A BIG HOLLYWOOD FILM LIKE BRIDE WARS? "It was kind of fun, because it's about a good girl having an identity crisis. It's another wedding film. But I took the same level of comfort with just focusing on the character in that film, and I found that I enjoyed that experience a lot as a result. It made my performance better than some of my other commercial films, and it taught me that I need to trust my directors more."

DO YOU WORRY ABOUT BECOMING OVER-EXPOSED?

"I don't know. I'm a middle-class girl from New Jersey who stared at the lights of Manhattan and dreamed about being on Broadway. I would go up on these hilltops and look out to see the city lights, and I had this idea that I was going to be this fantastic bohemian surrounded by all these fabulous [people]. So it doesn't occur to me yet that I have the right to become over-saturated. I feel like I'm lucky to work, and I don't know if Rachel Getting Married was the start of a new phase in my life, whether it will change or spoil me in any way. But I do know that there are interesting filmmakers out there who are making movies in an interesting way, and I don't like to speculate on the future in any way… especially when it comes to turning down work."

HOW DOES THE REALITY OF YOUR LIFE NOW COMPARE TO THOSE DREAMS YOU HAD WHEN YOU LOOKED OUT OVER NEW YORK CITY? "I thought if I could just sing on Broadway, I'd be a success, and I've actually gotten to do that. But I didn't know things like movie premieres in 3,000-seat theaters existed, and I didn't imagine I'd get to tell all these great stories. It's cool, because right now it feels like I'm getting back to the basics of the dream, which was to tell good stories. Th at's what I wanted as a young girl, even if I didn't think about it in those terms. Now that my terms are clearly defined, it's like, OK, now I can begin."

ANNE HATHAWAY PROFILE

BORN: Nov. 12, 1982, in Brooklyn, NY (raised in Millburn, NJ)

FATHER: Gerald Hathaway, lawyer

MOTHER: Kate McCauley, stage actress

SIBLINGS: Michael and Tom

EDUCATION: Studied at Vassar College before transferring to New York University; she plans to go back to finish her degree

THEATRICAL CAREER: Performed as a soprano with the All-Eastern United States High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall; studied at New York's Barrow Group Theatre Company (was the first teenager ever admitted to the acting program)

HIT LISTS: Teen People's "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" (2002, 2004); People's "100 Most Beautiful People in the World" (2007); Entertainment Weekly's "30 Under 30" (2008)

BEST FACE FORWARD: Recently joined cosmetics giant Lancôme as the face of Magnifique, the new fragrance released in September.

Director's Cut

Jonathan Demme, of Rachel Getting Married, on what makes Anne Hathaway extraordinary.

"However old she was when she made The Princess Diaries, she could free herself from the intimidation of working with Julie Andrews and being in some big movie... She's got that creative thing, whatever it is, that consumes the people who really want it. She's got that gift of total immersion in the part. She's also extremely bright, knows so much, and is always questioning to learn more. She's as big-hearted as she seems to be, and that's a tremendous resource. And I'm not a surface person-I think everybody looks great-but there's just something about her look that I just love."

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