What Anne Hathaway Admitted on Korean TV Left Fans Stunned

Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep sat down with Yoo Jae-suk on April 15 for what was billed as a promotional appearance — and delivered something far more personal than either press release had suggested. Over the course of the episode, the two actresses disclosed details about the original film's production that they had kept largely private for twenty years, and the moment that opened the conversation had nothing to do with The Devil Wears Prada 2 at all.

Hathaway arrived at the studio and, before anything else, told Yoo Jae-suk that she recognized him. She had seen him in a television commercial the previous night — a Korean food advertisement in which he wore a polka-dotted suit. "I thought: that person is seriously swaggy," she said. "So when I walked in today and saw you, I could not believe it." Yoo, who has hosted You Quiz since 2018 and is one of the most familiar faces in Korean entertainment, laughed with visible astonishment at being identified not through his shows, but through a commercial a Hollywood actress caught while channel-surfing at her hotel.

Hathaway Was the 9th Actress Considered for Andy

The episode shifted when Hathaway began talking about the original casting process. She was not the first choice for the role of Andy Sachs. She told the studio that she was the ninth candidate considered — a detail that reframes the performance that audiences have been watching for two decades.

The project was among the most coveted in Hollywood when it was being cast. A long list of actresses from Hathaway's generation were offered the role before it came to her. She described watching each announcement carefully — knowing who was next in line, checking for news of each person declining — while sitting with the discomfort of wanting something very much that was, for a long time, not hers. "When the offer finally came to me, I was so relieved I could barely speak," she said.

The gap between where she stood in that audition process and what the performance became speaks directly to what the film was, for her, when she made it. Andy was not a role she walked into with confidence — it was one she chased, waited out, and eventually won by being, repeatedly, still there. That context is now part of the story of the original film in a way it was not before April 15.

She Stayed Afraid of Meryl Streep on Purpose

Hathaway's second disclosure was about her co-star. She said that during the original shoot, she had deliberately kept her distance from Streep on set. The reason was strategic. "Every time she walked onto the set, I froze," Hathaway said. "I kept some distance on purpose, because I thought that if I stayed slightly in awe of her, that feeling would come through in my performance." She held the tension deliberately for two months. "It worked," she said simply.

Streep, hearing this for what appeared to be the first time, laughed genuinely. She said she had always valued Hathaway's professionalism on set without knowing what was driving it. The idea that the chemistry between Miranda and Andy — the unease, the asymmetry, the particular quality of Hathaway's reactions in scenes with Streep — was partly constructed by Hathaway keeping herself afraid struck the studio audience as exactly the kind of detail that makes an already-loved film make more sense.

Streep on the Character She Invented From Scratch

Meryl Streep addressed directly the question that has followed the original film since its release: who was Miranda Priestly based on? Her answer was definitive. "I was not doing an impression of anyone," she said. "The character came from somewhere else entirely." The firmness of the statement had the effect of making Miranda feel more formidable, not less — created rather than copied, assembled from something internal rather than observed from life.

She also described what the role required of her in terms that were unusually candid. "I felt a kind of career limit I had never encountered before," Streep said. "Not as a problem — more like reaching the edge of a territory I had not known existed." That she found such a limit in a film many critics initially underestimated as a glossy comedy says something about where the original Devil Wears Prada actually sits in the arc of her work.

What the Episode Meant for Korean Audiences

The April 15 episode was the follow-through on a visit that had been anticipated since March, when Streep and Hathaway's appearance on You Quiz was first announced. The anticipation centered largely on the novelty of the encounter — Hollywood royalty on a Korean variety show. What the episode delivered was something different: two experienced actresses speaking candidly about their work in a setting designed to draw out exactly that kind of honesty.

The clip of Hathaway recognizing Yoo Jae-suk from the commercial circulated widely, praised for being unscripted and genuinely warm. The revelations about the casting and the on-set dynamic between Hathaway and Streep generated discussion across multiple platforms, with many viewers noting that the disclosures — particularly about the ninth-place casting and the deliberate distance — recontextualized the original film in ways that enhanced rather than diminished it.

Korean entertainment formats, including You Quiz, have built a particular reputation for producing these kinds of moments: conversations that go somewhere real because the format invites it. That this episode achieved it with two American actresses speaking about a twenty-year-old movie suggests the format translates across both language and cultural context more fully than a skeptic might have expected. The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens in Korean cinemas on April 29. The original film, made for a budget of $35 million, crossed $326 million at the global box office and helped establish a template for stories about ambition, proximity to power, and what it costs to succeed in industries built around exclusion. Both actresses described the sequel as a film that asks a different question than the first one — not how to get in, but what to do once you are already inside and the rules have changed completely.