Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Andy Sachs gets her first real taste of flattery from a man who is not worth trusting. In The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Anne Hathaway plays Andy, and her scenes with Simon Baker’s Christian Thompson, a well-known writer who takes an interest in the new assistant, mark the point where Andy starts to enjoy the world she has been mocking.

The film was directed by David Frankel, from a screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel. Hathaway’s character is the audience’s way in. As Britannica summarizes it, Andy is an earnest journalism graduate who becomes the second assistant to Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the formidable editor in chief of the fictional magazine Runway.

Who Andy is

Andy wants to write serious journalism and takes the Runway job as a stepping stone. The part asks for something harder than it looks. She has to be out of her depth, funny about it, and believable as someone who slowly changes. Hathaway plays the early scenes with a plain stubbornness that makes the later polish mean something. By the time Andy is running Miranda’s errands in Paris, the audience can see what she has gained and what it has cost her.

The film keeps Andy sympathetic even when she is careless. She neglects her friends and her boyfriend, and she is dazzled by a job she thought she despised. Hathaway lets the character be flattered, ambitious and a little ashamed, often in the same scene.

The Christian Thompson scenes

Simon Baker’s Christian Thompson is the film’s temptation. He is charming, well connected and apparently interested in Andy as a person rather than as Miranda’s assistant. That makes the later turn land harder. He tells Andy that Miranda’s job is under threat, with Jacqueline Follet of French Runway being prepared as her replacement. Andy tries to warn Miranda, who waves her off.

The sequence matters because it sets up the film’s central choice. Andy learns that Miranda already knew about the plan and protected her own position, and she then sees in Miranda’s ruthlessness the person she might become. Hathaway’s reaction in that scene carries the film’s turn, and it is quieter than the comedy around it.

How Hathaway got the part

Hathaway was not the studio’s first choice. She has said she was the ninth choice for Andy. She kept telling the studio she still wanted the role while they looked at other actors, and she later called the way it worked out “some kind of destiny.”

The casting came at a particular moment in her career. Britannica notes that reviewers saw her performance as a successful move away from the teen roles she had been best known for. Opposite Streep, who won a Golden Globe for playing Miranda, Hathaway had to hold her own as the straight woman, and the film depends on her doing so.

Reception and legacy

The film was a sleeper hit. Britannica reports a worldwide gross of $326.6 million against a $35 million budget. It was nominated for three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards. It has stayed popular on streaming and inspired a stage adaptation and a sequel.

Andy is also the character fans quote and imitate least, because she is the one who stays ordinary. The cerulean-sweater speech and Miranda’s one-liners get the attention, but Andy’s journey is what gives them somewhere to land. At the end of the film she leaves Runway and takes a job at a New York newspaper, as Variety noted in its coverage of the sequel.

Andy returns in 2026

Hathaway announced in 2024 that she would reprise the role. She shared a first-look image of the character in 2025 with the caption “Andy Sachs 2025” while filming in New York. The Devil Wears Prada 2, again directed by Frankel and written by McKenna, premiered in New York on April 20, 2026, and opened in US theaters on May 1, 2026. Streep, Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci all returned.

The Hollywood Reporter said the sequel puts the three central women in new adversarial positions, though it called the film cozily sentimental in places. It began streaming on Disney+ on July 29, 2026, alongside the original. Hathaway has also been confirmed for a third Princess Diaries film, but for many viewers Andy Sachs remains the role that turned a young star into a leading actress.