Anne Hathaway finds it easier to be naked than British

Surprise! Despite her reputation as a goody two-shoes goofball, Anne Hathaway finds it less intimidating to film a scene in her birthday suit than to attempt a Northern English accent.

“I was more nervous about the accent than nudity,” The Sun reports Hathaway confessing about playing Emma Morely in the film adaptation of the bestselling novel, “One Day.” “I mean, you can do sit-ups as prep for the nudity. But there aren't a lot of vocal sit-ups that you can do.”

The film is based on the 2010 book by David Nicholls about a pair of star-crossed Gen X lovers, following their missed connections over the course of 20 years.


Hathaway ditched her clothes to go skinny-dipping in a scene with co-star Jim Sturgess, who plays rakish rich boy Dexter Mayhew.

“Maybe it's because I have more experience in my life being naked than pretending to be British,” explained Hathaway. ‘I got more comfortable quickly with the nudity than I did with the accent.”


Although Brits had no apparent problem with Hathaway showing her naughty bits, they howled with disapproval when the All-American Disney star was initially cast in the film. In her role, Hathaway plays a girl from working-class Yorkshire.

“I stayed in the accent and used British-isms,” The Devil Wears Prada star explains of her strategy mastering the language's cadence while living in the U.K. “I was a little disappointed because I hoped I would start dreaming in the accent. You know, that one morning I would just wake up and be in the accent. But that never happened. But once I was in it, the American accent became the ‘other'. It was hard to mix the two so I just wound up staying in it all the time.”

By the end of filming, Hathaway seemed to get the hang of it. “At the wrap party it freaked people out when I started talking like me. I asked them, ‘What's going on?' And they said, ‘It's a bit jarring. You're kind of a different person now.'”