TV & Movies
Kate Hudson Regrets Turning Down The Devil Wears Prada
Her decision might have changed cinematic history as we know it.
Kate Hudson’s role as “How-To Girl” Andie Anderson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days will go down in rom-com history. But as the actor revealed in a recent interview, she nearly played another young journalist named Andie (er, Andy), who also worked at a women’s magazine she vocally disdained while longing to write about serious subject matter.
Yes, Hudson was offered the role of Andrea “Andy” Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada. And as she told Capital Breakfast in an interview posted on Feb. 21, she regrets passing on the job.
The Role That Might Have Been
“That was a bad call,” Hudson said, adding that it was a “timing thing” she couldn’t make work. “I should have made it happen. And I didn’t.”
Hudson — who stars in Netflix’s sports comedy series Running Point (out Feb. 27) — explained that when movies are being made, there are “waves of things that are happening,” and it’s not that she necessarily wanted to turn down Prada.
“It’s not like you don’t do them because you don’t want to do them,” she said. “It’s like, oh, you’re doing something else. And it just sucked.”
Watching the 2006 hit, “I was like, Ugh,” Hudson recalled. Despite her FOMO, she said that “everything happens for a reason.”
In the case of The Devil Wears Prada — based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same name — it’s hard to imagine anyone but Anne Hathaway playing the assistant to Meryl Streep’s formidable Runway editor, Miranda Priestly.
But once upon a time, there were other options. In addition to Hudson, Kirsten Dunst, Scarlett Johansson, Rachel McAdams, and Natalie Portman were considered for the role of Andy, according to Entertainment Weekly’s oral history of the film.
“I patiently waited until it was my turn, and I got the call,” Hathaway told the magazine in 2021. “It was the easiest yes in the world.”
Another Casting Surprise
The role of Andy isn’t the only one that nearly looked different. As producer Wendy Finerman shared on the Hollywood Gold podcast in 2023, Streep wasn’t a shoo-in for Priestly.
“People would say ‘Are you out of your mind? She’s never been funny a day in her life,’” Finerman recalled. But, as the producer noted, “She has been funny, and they were wrong.”
Fortunately, naysayers couldn’t stop Streep from fulfilling her fashionable destiny. Not only did Miranda Priestly become one of Streep’s most iconic roles — and that’s saying something — but it also contributed to her long list of Oscar nominations. She now has a total of 21, making her the most-nominated actor in Academy history.
