For Anne Hathaway, hosting the Oscars seemed like such a good idea. Afterall, she’d had an amazing time playing her part in Hugh Jackman’s 2009 Academy Awards opening number in which the pair celebrated nominee
Frost/Nixon by facing off as the legendary journalist and disgraced politician. Anne, ever the theatre kid at heart, drew cheers with her spot-on peace finger waggle as she channeled Nixon doing his iconic victory move — all while decked out in a red carpet gown, makeup, and heels. So when organizers asked her to return in 2011, she jumped at the chance — and fell flat on her face. For that debacle, she blames Jackman.“I was like, ‘I want to be like Hugh. Yeah, I’ll give it a go,'” she said while chatting with Jackman himself in a conversation for
Variety. “How could you?” she asked the actor. “How could you set me up like that?”[video_embed id='-1']RELATED: Anne Hathaway will ‘move to a vineyard’ when her son turns 18[/video_embed]Reminiscing, she told Jackman about being asked to appear in his opener. “I was just like, ‘I know I’m going to say yes to this.’ I love silly, and it was just that really fun combination. Who wouldn’t want to sing and dance with you?” Hathaway, who co-hosted the much-maligned 83rd awards ceremony with James Franco, said that her time on the stage in 2009 was so much fun that she thinks that it, in part, influenced her decision to tackle the hosting gig.So when it came time for her to take the reins two years later, she went in feeling confident that the fun she’d had before could be replicated. “I was focusing on the parts of the show that I knew worked,” she told Jackman. “You know how sometimes your optimism tips into delusion and you’re just like, ‘If I’m just really, really nice to everybody, everything’s going to work out?’ It did not work in that case, but I’m so happy that 50 per cent of the people in this conversation did a really good job hosting the Oscars,” she joked.For his part, Jackman was big enough to face up to one of his own failures during the conversation: convincing Anne that she’d actually done a good job. “It’s frightening,” he told her, admitting that he, too, had stage fright before his big night. “Sometimes it works out.”“Finish that sentence, Hugh!” Hathaway challenged him. “Finish that sentence, ‘Sometimes it works out and sometimes —?’”Wisely, Jackman declined.[video_embed id='1984962']BEFORE YOU GO: Child welcomes her dad home in the most adorable way[/video_embed]
