Anne Hathaway is setting the record straight about the theory Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde inspired her new film, “The Idea of you.”
“No, just no,” Hathaway told EXTRA when asked about online speculation that the film was based on the former couple’s romance.
Though the film is based on Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel of the same name, fans immediately noticed the plot’s surface similarity to the relationship between Styles and Wilde. The pair was linked from January 2021 to November 2022 — several years after Lee’s book was published.
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Getty Images Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles. (Getty Images) NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MARCH 02: (EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE) Harry Styles visits SiriusXM Studios on March 02, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
The book’s author shut down rumors they were the inspiration in a 2020 interview with Vogue saying, “This was never supposed to be a book about Harry Styles.”
Lee continued, “It was supposed to be a story about a woman approaching 40 and reclaiming her sexuality and rediscovering herself, just at the point that society traditionally writes women off as desirable and viable and whole.”
Hathaway also told Extra the rom-com focuses more on “what it takes to recover from a broken heart.”
“My character had her heart just absolutely smashed by her ex-husband, and it wasn’t just that her heart that got broken,” Hathaway explained. “She invested so much in her family. You know, there’s a line in the piece about how she’s a former people pleaser, and I think she made a lot of kind of grown-up choices throughout her life.”
In the film, 40-year-old single mom Solène and a boy band member named Hayes, played by Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine respectively, fall for each other unexpectedly. Solene had a child at a young age and was very serious about her role as a mother.
“And you know what? She did great,” Hathaway noted. “She’s raised a great kid, she’s built a business … She’s doing like a lot of things right, and then, when her husband does this awful thing to her, she has to wonder if she was ever really loved in the first place. And so that’s a long time to live with that question.”
The actress-producer also says the relationship started with Solene thinking “it’s just gonna be a bit of fun,” but as time went on “she realizes it’s something more, and if she’s gonna actually participate in it, she’s gonna have to let some other things go.”
