Anne Hathaway Insists Her New Movie Isn’t About Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde

Fans have been speculating that 'The Idea of You' is One Direction fanfiction.

When it was announced that Robinne Lee's 2017 novel The Idea of You would be making its way to the big screen — starring Anne Hathaway, no less — internet sleuths wondered if people would draw comparisons between the source material and Harry Styles fanfiction. While the idea of that has been debunked since, with the author telling Vogue that The Idea of You “was never supposed to be a book about Harry Styles," Hathaway had to address the rumors, too. When the notion of her film being based on Styles and his relationship with Olivia Wilde, the actress told Extra, “No, just no.”

The film is described as a "romantic comedy-drama" and follows Hathaway's Solène Marchand, a single 40-year-old mother who takes her daughter to see the biggest boy band in the world, August Moon. However, things get complicated when Solène ends up in an unexpected romance with the group's 24-year-old lead singer, Hayes Campbell, played by Nicholas Galitzine.

“My character had her heart just absolutely smashed by her ex-husband, and it wasn’t just that her heart that got broken,” Hathaway continued, setting the record straight on the film. “She’s raised a great kid. She’s built a business ... She’s doing 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. So, that’s a long time to live with that question.”

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Lee also noted that The Idea of You was “supposed to be a story about a woman approaching 40 and reclaiming her sexuality … at the point that society traditionally writes them off as desirable and viable and whole." She finished by saying that she set out to write something far, far away from a "classic, fuzzy romance." 

As for who inspired her male lead, Lee said her character is actually an amalgamation of many guys: “like Prince Harry meets Harry Styles" with a bit of her "ex-boyfriends, a little of her husband, and a dash of Eddie Redmayne."

Galatzine did take some inspiration from Styles, though, telling BuzzFeed that he “tried to create a character that felt akin” to the former One Direction member, particularly “in a sense that he’s a younger man dating older women.”

The Idea of You will stream on Prime Video on May 2.

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