Anne Hathaway is spilling secrets about The Princess Diaries!
On Tuesday night, the Oscar winner took part in honoring beloved director Garry Marshall, who passed away in 2016 at the age of 81. In a bonus clip from ABC’s special, The Happy Days Of Garry Marshall, Hathaway recalled working with Marshall on The Princess Diaries, and how one fan favorite scene in the 2001 movie wasn’t actually in the script.
“One of the things that I love about Garry is that he was never afraid of the spontaneous moment,” Hathaway shared. “If it was good, it was in the movie. He didn’t care where it came from, he didn’t care what happened.”
Hathaway went on to discuss one scene in the film where her character, Mia Thermopolis, is talking on the bleachers with her BFF, Lilly Moscovitz (Heather Matarazzo). In the movie, we see Hathaway fall on the bleachers, which fans assumed was written in the script. However, it turns out, Hathaway accidentally fell IRL, and the moment made it into the movie.
“We were filming in San Francisco, predictably it had rained,” Hathaway recalled. “We were outside, and we had to get the shot really fast because we were losing light. And we had to go on these bleachers and they did their best to wipe them down.”
Hathaway recalled Marshall’s direction, “Whenever Heather Matarazzo [is] at the bottom step, I want you to be at the top step of the bleacher. And you just walk back and forth, and we’re gonna get all this information and it’s gonna be cute because you guys are moving.”
Hathaway said that, during one take, she realized her and Matarazzo were going to be on the same step, so she “turned really fast” and slipped on a puddle, fell and burst out laughing!
According to Hathaway, she “never” thought about the scene again until six months later when that exact moment was in the trailer for The Princess Diaries.
“[Marshall] kept it because it was a charming moment,” Hathaway explained.
Watch Hathaway talk about the iconic movie moment in the video above!