Hathaway says she and her character, Kym, clicked immediately—“almost like a medieval lock”—but their personalities couldn’t be more different. The actress is friendly and courteous, and a bit of a klutz. “She has a bad record with phones,” says her older brother Michael. “She loses them pretty frequently.” But like Kym, she’s a nomad, too. She and Follieri used to share an apartment in New York. “I don’t live anywhere right now,” she says. “Yes, my suitcase is a fun place to live out of.” Hathaway casually brings up Follieri from time to time, though not always by name. Yet even when she’s telling a story that has nothing to do with him, you see that he’s on her mind.

She talks about how a house fire destroyed her Barbies and baby clothes when she was 12, which made her less likely to get attached to things. “In my life, the more I love something, the more likely it is to get lost or ruined,” she says.

Hathaway’s a lot tougher than she gives herself credit for. Despite her Disney-princess lineage, Hathaway has proved that she’s willing to take major career risks. She followed The Princess Diaries with Havoc, in which she did her first topless scene as an L.A. rich girl, only to see the movie go straight to video. “For a while, I didn’t like that the one word I got again and again was ‘sweet’,” she says. “Sweet’s very simple. I thought, ‘Am I actually bland?’”

... contd.