Anne Hathaway is embracing the unconventional age gap in her new movie, “The Idea of You.”
In the upcoming romantic comedy, Hathaway plays 40-year-old Solène Marchand, a single mom who takes her daughter to Coachella to see her favorite boy band, August Moon.
When Solène has a chance meeting with the band’s 24-year-old frontman, Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), sparks fly between them and they strike up an unexpected romance.
Hathaway and Galitzine stopped by TODAY on Monday, April 29, to talk about “The Idea of You" and the conversations it has sparked around romantic age gaps.
“It’s kind of fun to be in a film where we talk about it, where we don’t dance around it, but we actually embrace her point of view on it,” Hathaway said.
There’s no doubt “The Idea of You” subverts traditional rom-com tropes by featuring a relationship between a 40-year-old woman and a much younger man.
However, as Hathaway points out, being 40 can mean different things to different people, and it’s the relationship between two individuals that ultimately matters.
“It’s funny, it’s OK if 40 is old, it’s OK if 40 isn’t old, it’s OK whatever it is, because it’s personal,” she said. “For Solène, her point of view is, you know, she became a mom really young and she really wanted to have a career and so she doesn’t totally identify with her age.
“She feels like maybe she’s done things a little bit out of order and for her, 40 means it's a time ... of self discovery for her,” she continued. “And that’s what the movie says … how wonderful that she finds someone that she feels so supported by, seen by, embraced by, valued by.”
Hathaway also said she “poured so much love, so much life experience into this film.”
Galitzine and Hathaway also revealed they had instant chemistry as friends off-screen.
“Well, Annie put me through the ringer,” Galitzine joked about their audition.
He added that they did “a couple of pretty amazing scenes, one quite comedic, one very emotional,” and that he “serenaded Annie” on set.
“The whole room, it wasn’t just me ... Nick sang at the audition with his guitar and looked at me sometimes," she answered with a laugh.
Was ‘The Idea of You’ age gap the same in the book?
“The Idea of You” is based on a 2017 novel of the same name by Robinne Lee. While the plot of the movie is similar to the book, the characters’ ages were changed slightly in the film adaptation.
In the movie, Solène is 40 and Hayes is 24, while in the book, the characters have a larger age gap: Solène is 39, while Hayes is just 20.
Meanwhile, the actual age gap between Hathaway and Galitzine is smaller than in the book or the movie: Hathaway is 41, and Galitzine is 29.
“The Idea of You" will be available to stream on Prime Video on May 2.