Anne Hathaway tried to get everyone through a group photo at the Verity premiere. Then she remembered someone was recording the whole thing. Her explanation on The Tonight Show is almost as funny as the footage: she wanted to help the photographers, took charge of the photo call and regretted it as soon as she stopped.
Jimmy Fallon brought up the September 29 New York premiere during her September 30 visit. Hathaway knew which video he meant before he played it. He thought the moment was funny. She was already reaching for her coffee and preparing to be embarrassed.
She gave the photographers a plan
The replay shows Hathaway pointing across the photographers and counting out an order for the group to follow. The idea is straightforward: look toward one set of cameras, then move along to the next. Nobody has to compete for everyone’s attention at once.
What makes it funny is how quickly a movie-premiere pose turns into a group exercise. Hathaway does not vaguely wave toward the cameras and hope for the best. She sets a rhythm, checks that everyone understands and gets the cast ready to begin. Dakota Johnson, standing beside her, moves along with the count.
It is a very organized response to a very public situation. Anyone who has tried to get several people to look in the same direction for a photograph will recognize the problem. Most of us just do not have a row of photographers waiting for the result.
Why she stepped in
Hathaway told Fallon that there were a lot of people in the group and that the photographers were getting frustrated. She noticed the atmosphere changing and wanted to keep the photo call moving. Her explanation was simple:
“I was trying to be helpful.”
She described the result as “mom mode” mixed with a chorus-line routine. It was not a bit she had planned to perform on the carpet. Fallon’s replay makes the contrast obvious: she is concentrating on getting the pictures taken while the people around her get caught up in the counting.
Fallon does not treat it as a scandal or a confrontation. He laughs at the efficiency of it. Hathaway, meanwhile, has to sit across from him and watch herself become the person giving everybody instructions.
The embarrassment arrived afterward
The photo itself was only half of the problem. Hathaway said that once she finished, she realized the direction-giving had also been captured on video. She had been thinking about getting the photographers their shot, not what the organizing would look like when people watched it afterward.
She describes cringing inwardly, then offers a joking apology. Even that apology gets a correction: the version of herself who appeared that night was not there to play around. She had come to get things done.
The movie behind the photo call
Verity is now in theaters following its October 2 release. Michael Showalter directs the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s psychological thriller, with a screenplay by Nick Antosca and Hoover. Hathaway plays the bestselling author Verity Crawford, not the writer hired to finish her books.
That writer is Lowen Ashleigh, played by Dakota Johnson. Lowen moves into the Crawford estate to ghostwrite for Verity after an injury. What looks like a major opportunity changes when she discovers disturbing autobiographical notes and becomes involved with Verity’s husband, Jeremy, played by Josh Hartnett.
Those roles help explain who Hathaway and Johnson are promoting on the carpet without giving away the thriller’s ending. Lowen is the newcomer trying to understand the household; Verity is the author whose work and private life she starts investigating. Away from the cheerful photo call, the film follows Lowen as she tries to decide what to believe.
Who’s who in Verity
Photograph: Ralph Bavaro / NBC.
