What would you do if I told you everything you know is a lie? Brace yourself, because Anne Hathaway's nickname is what everyone calls her in real life, but she never bothered to correct anyone with her preference until now. The 38-year-old actress actually regrets making "Anne" her first name on her SAG card, but her preferred nickname isn't far off from the household name the world knows and loves.
In a Jan. 12 interview with Jimmy Fallon, Hathaway revealed her first name makes her a bit uncomfortable, and whenever someone calls out "Anne," she thinks they're going to "yell" at her. "The only person who calls me Anne is my mother and she only does it when she’s really mad at me, like really mad," the actress told Fallon. "People are like, ‘Anne!’ And I’m like ‘What? What did I do?’"
Hathaway revealed her preferred nickname, and what everyone calls her in daily life, is actually "Annie." She explained that the much more formal "Anne" caught on because she used the name on her SAG card after filming a commercial when she was only 14 years old. "So, [using Anne] seemed like the right choice, but it never occurred to me that for the rest of my life, people will call me Anne," she said.
You would think, after all these years in the public eye, Hathaway has become more comfortable with her first name, but it still makes her cringe. "People are so lovely they don’t want to be presumptuous and so I think they come up with workarounds on set because the truth is nobody’s comfortable with calling me Anne, ever. It doesn’t fit. I’m an Annie," she told Fallon. She also added that people call her "Miss H" and "Hath" sometimes, but Annie is the way to go.
The Witches actress has never really corrected anyone at award shows or on red carpets, so the nickname came as a surprise to Fallon. "My mom would call me my middle name, 'James Thomas,'" he told Hathaway in response to her revealing her nickname.
"I doubt anyone's ever like, 'James Thomas, how are you?'" Hathaway said. She's definitely right about that, but mostly because calling Jimmy Fallon "James" in any situation would seem like a crime.