What Nicholas Galitzine and Anne Hathaway Have Said About Their ‘The Idea of You’ Characters’ Age Gap

For Nicholas Galitzine and Anne Hathaway’s characters in The Idea of You, age is just a number.

The film, which drops on May 2 via Amazon Prime, follows 40-year-old Solène (Hathaway) as she meets 24-year-old boy band member Hayes (Galitzine), and the pair spark an unexpected romance.

Fans couldn’t help but draw comparisons between Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde’s previous May-December romance when it was revealed that The Idea of You would be adapted onto the big screen. The pair, who were linked from January 2021 to November 2022, had a 10-year age gap.

However, Hathaway set the record straight during a March interview with Extra, telling the outlet, “No, just no,” about the speculation that Styles and Wilde inspired the movie, which was based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Robinne Lee.

Instead, Hathaway noted that the film is about “what it takes to recover from a broken heart.” She added that Solène began the relationship with Hayes “thinking it’s just gonna be a bit of fun,” until “she realizes it’s something more, and if she’s gonna actually participate in it, she’s gonna have to let some other things go.”

Scroll down for everything Galitzine and Hathaway have said about their characters’ age gap romance:

Something New

“I’m so excited for The Idea of You, you know, again it's portraying something that we're not really used to seeing on screen which is an age-gap love between a young man and an older woman," Galitzine told Entertainment Tonight in March. "I'm really thrilled that it's coming out and Anne is such an incredible actress ... Very excited for people to watch it!"

Everything to Know About Anne Hathaway’s New Film ‘The Idea of You’

Age Gap Love is ‘Very Exciting’

“The notion that this movie promotes female pleasure as this sort of protagonist I think is really interesting and unique, and obviously displays an age-gap love that we don’t usually see on screen between a younger man and an older woman,” he told Hits Radio in March. “It was very exciting in that way, as well.”

Coming of Age at Any Age

During the SXSW Film & TV festival in March, Hathaway discussed showcasing the pair’s age gap romance on screen.

“For some reason, we talk about coming-of-age stories as being something that happens to you in the earliest part of your life, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like I keep blooming,” she said. “I don’t want to be pigeonholed and don’t want to be placed in a box of what type of films I have to be making because of my age, gender and because I won an Oscar. I want to have fun, dammit. It speaks to me.”

40 Looks Different to Everyone

“It’s kind of fun to be in a film where we talk about it, where we don’t dance around it, but we actually embrace her point of view on it,” Hathaway said of the age gap during an April 29 appearance on Today. "It’s funny. It’s OK if 40 is old, it’s OK if 40 isn’t old, it’s OK whatever it is, because it’s personal. For Solène, her point of view is, you know, she became a mom really young and she really wanted to have a career and so she doesn’t totally identify with her age.”

She continued, “[The character] feels like maybe she’s done things a little bit out of order and for her, 40 means it’s a time … of self-discovery for her. And that’s what the movie says … how wonderful that she finds someone that she feels so supported by, seen by, embraced by, valued by.”