Kate Hudson has admitted that she most regrets turning down a role in the 2006 fashion movie The Devil Wears Prada.
The actor, who rose to fame for her roles in 2000’s Almost Famous and 2003’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, has revealed that she wishes she had accepted an offer to play the role of intern Andrea Sachs, which eventually went to Anne Hathaway.
In a new interview with Capital, Hudson was asked about whether she had regrets about roles she had turned down, and she paused for a moment before replying: “The Devil Wears Prada. That was a bad call.”
“And it was a timing thing, and I couldn’t do it. I should have made it happen and I didn’t.”
She added: “That was one, when I saw [the film] I was like, ‘ugh’. But again, everything happens for a reason.”
The Devil Wears Prada was filmed in 2005 and, at the time, Hudson would have been shooting the 2006 film You, Me and Dupree, which follows a best man (Owen Wilson) who stays on as a houseguest with a newlywed couple (Hudson and Matt Dillon), much to their annoyance.
While Hathway was eventually given the role, she has since revealed that she was the ninth pick for the part.
Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers) and Claire Danes (Romeo + Juliet) are among those who were thought to have been offered the role before Hathaway. The film’s director David Frankel also shared in 2021 that About Time star Rachel McAdams had turned down the role three times.
According to Frankel, Fox 2000 – the studio behind the 2006 film – had wanted McAdams to take on the lead role of Andy Sachs due to her success in The Notebook and Mean Girls.
“We started negotiating with Annie [Hathaway] to make a deal, and that didn’t go well with the studio… We offered it to Rachel McAdams three times,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2021.
“The studio was determined to have her, and she was determined not to do it.”
Scarlett Johansson, Kirsten Dunst and Natalie Portman were also reportedly offered the chance to appear alongside Meryl Streep in the film.
However, it wasn’t until co-star Streep put in a good word for Hathaway that she was seriously considered for the role, said Frankel.
The Devil Wears Prada was a critical and commercial hit, and accrued a large fanbase. It has been turned into a Broadway and West End musical, and a sequel is reportedly underway.
The 2006 film follows an aspiring journalist Andy (Hathaway) who becomes an assistant to one of the city’s most ruthless magazine editors, Miranda Priestly (Streep), at the fictional Runway fashion magazine. Emily Blunt played Priestly’s assistant Emily Charlton, while Stanley Tucci was fashion guru Nigel.
