Anne Hathaway opens up about being “chronically stressed”

Today Anne Hathaway seemingly has it all – a beautiful family, a flourishing career with an Oscar and a stylish style – but that doesn’t mean her life hasn’t had its share of obstacles. In a discussion with New York Times Magazine in the first episode of her new podcast “The Interview,” the actress opened up about the chronic anxiety she experienced early in her career and how she eventually overcame her fear.

“As a young woman who was previously constantly stressed, I remember thinking one day, ‘You’re taking this for granted. You are taking your life for granted. You do not know. Something could fall from the sky and the lights will go out,'” she remembers telling herself. “So when I noticed old instincts rising, I just told myself, ‘You’re not going to die of stress. straight,'” she said, adding, “I don’t know how to breathe yet. That’s really complicated.”

As for what made her so stressed and anxious as a young actress, Hathaway replied: “The simple answer is literally everything. I thought a lot about a lot rank.” She further explained: “I’m just stuck in this feeling. It’s about, I want to achieve things, I want to grow, and you mistakenly think that the way you do that is to be really hard on yourself. You motivate yourself by being self-critical.”

Academy Award winner, first known for Princess diary in 2001, revealing how she was able to change her mind years later. “I won’t go into specifics, but at one point I realized that in order to keep that story alive, I was going to have to deny a lot of things,” she said. “I just say: ‘You’re going to have to accept that if nothing had happened to you you’d have had a really wonderful life. You’d have been given gifts and opportunities. And for you to move on. going down this road, not showing gratitude, I don’t think that’s really who you are.’ It feels like a light has turned on.”

Now in her 40s, Hathaway said her goal is to “heal” her anxiety and “not relive it.” She continued, “I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it because I feel like I found a window and climbed through it. I work hard to be present. Like I said, I’m more grateful. I’m more settled within myself, I’m less afraid of things that won’t happen.”