Anne Hathaway Admits She Was a Bit Starstruck by Marisa Tomei on ‘She Came to Me’ Set: ‘I Literally Couldn’t Think’ (Video)

NOTE: “She Came to Me” received an Interim Agreement from SAG-AFTRA, allowing promotion of the film while adhering to current strike rules

Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei have been stars for a long time, and yet, “She Came to Me” marks the first time they’ve worked together. So yes, Hathaway was a little starstruck while on set.

Hathaway and Tomei star in the Rebecca Miller film, now in theaters as Patricia Jessup-Lauddem and Katrina Trento, respectively. Patricia is a therapist, married to Peter Dinklage’s character, who realizes that she actually very much wants to become a nun and give away all her belongings. Katrina, meanwhile, is a tugboat captain who is addicted to sex and romance, and seduces Patricia’s husband.

Alas, the two women only have one scene together in the film, meaning Hathaway’s time with Tomei was fairly brief, even if she would’ve loved to have found ways to extend it. Still, Hathaway admits she was flustered, even in the short time, simply because she respects Tomei’s work so much.

“We were an independent film, and our producer’s dog plays the dog, and one of our producers, during a rainstorm, was out there with paper towels wiping down the craft service table,” Hathaway recalled to TheWrap with a laugh. “So, as much as I would have loved to have flubbed lines with Marissa to have had more time with her, we just couldn’t afford it. Now, the good news was, I literally couldn’t think around her because I’m such a fan. So I probably did flub lines.”

You can watch Hathaway’s recollection of working with Tomei in the video above.

Meanwhile, writer and director Rebecca Miller of course got to work extensively with all three of her central leads. But, as she explains, that largely just meant chiming in when needed, rather than trying to overly steer the acclaimed trio.

“One of the most important things as a director is to know when to shut up and not to talk, and to only talk when it’s useful,” Miller explained to TheWrap. “And that, with these people, is not that often. You’re working with some of the greatest actors alive. And so you really try to be present and useful in the way each of them needs, and not more so.”

That said, Miller noted that she and Hathaway, who was a producer on the film, did a lot of their work on Hathaway’s character prior to filming.

“A lot of the work that we did — certainly Annie and I had to do — was in pre-production and talking about details, because Annie’s a very detail-oriented actor. And so, what are the details that add up to create this character? So many of her layers as a person that are not — they shouldn’t go together, but they do. And how do you create a rounded out person that comes to such an extreme point?”

Hathaway likened the process to “building Patricia as a human Chutes and Ladders” game.

“She Came to Me” is now in theaters.

The post Anne Hathaway Admits She Was a Bit Starstruck by Marisa Tomei on ‘She Came to Me’ Set: ‘I Literally Couldn’t Think’ (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.