Anne Hathaway began her career in comedy with Disney's The princess Diaries and returned to that genre last summer with the big screen adaptation of hit television show Get Smart.
Can you just tell me a little bit about your character?
Agent 99 is one of the top agents at CONTROL, an American agency that deals with controlling terrorism throughout the world. She is lovely but lethal and is a no-nonsense sort of a woman who doesn't apologize for anything or to anyone.
She says what she wants and goes and gets it in anyway possible. Anyway possible that involves integrity.
I understand there was a lot of improvisation during filming. Can you talk about what the environment was like on set and maybe what some of your favorite improvisational moments were?
Well the other day, Alan Arkin, who I have such a crush on, was talking about Second City. He said, "the thing about Second City that was amazing was you couldn't fail.
People who went to the shows would only be expecting 50 percent of the material to work. Environments are not like that anymore.
Though I would never want to disagree with Mr. Arkin, I have to say that I actually I felt like on the set that is the environment that we had. No one expected every single joke to land but there was a freedom to try anything you wanted.
If anyone had an idea, Pete Segal was open to it and he created an environment where if it wasn't funny, it wasn't going to end up in the movie. No judgment, no problems and if it was funny, it would be impossible to fail.
In terms of my favorite improvs, I would just love when Steve would use the one-line word like "Yes." Steve would say it in 20 different ways, throwing little different pauses into it. I watch him and think, it’s one word, how are you this funny? He can make one word funny because he is so good.
Were you always laughing?
Always! There were days when we couldn't even look at each others eyes because anytime we would, we would both crack up - I mean he wouldn't break actually. He would just be nice and kind and laugh after I did.
He is kind and understanding and I would of course mess up his wonderful witty takes and felt bad.
I understand you did a read through with Steve in Pete Segal’s office prior to getting hired. Can you first tell me a little bit about that reading because I heard it was pretty interesting?
Well, when I originally met Pete to play Agent 99, it was just a sit down reading. It wasn't an audition. It was just to see how we got along. My personality is very, very different than Agent 99.
I didn't do the meeting in character, so I knew at the end of the session, he wasn't considering me for the role. Although, I made him promise me that before he made a final decision, he would let me read.
Figuring I had no chance at the part, I really asked to audition because I really wanted to meet Steve Carell. When I went in, I was super relaxed. Whenever Steve would improvise, I was so tickled to get to talk to him that I just kind of went with it.
I didn't put any pressure on myself because I didn't think I would get the role. I just assumed I wasn't. No judgment, no nothing. Apparently, whatever we did, Pete liked because it wound up in the movie. I wound up in the movie.
Can you tell me what the dance and fight training was like?
There wasn't any dance training. We would dance wherever we could. We once rehearsed in a mechanics shop. We just danced wherever we could. It was really a lot of "on the job training" in the dance sequence.
Was there any fight training?
Yeah lots. We had wonderful people training us. I had this amazing stunt double. I wanted 99 to have a basic martial arts background so there was definitely a lot of focus on that.
Was it fun to kick ass?
It is always fun to kick ass especially when you are someone like me who is as aggressive as a tulip. It was definitely very fun to pretend I was someone who normally could do something like that.
Get Smart is released 23rd February on DVD
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