Anne Hathaway was left shocked by the seedy world of phone sex hotlines as she researched her role in Valentine’s Day after stumbling upon a bizarre fetish website detailing men’s weirdest sexual fantasies. The Devil Wears Prada actress stars in the new romantic comedy as an office assistant by day and phone sex operator at night. Hathaway turned to one of her friends, who used to moonlight in the industry, for advice but admits she was not prepared for some of the strange stories she read about sexual fetishes when she decided to look up the topic. She says, “I actually know someone who was an assistant, as my character is in the movie, and did moonlight as a phone sex operator, so I asked her a lot of questions. “I said, ‘Well I think my character is pretty smart so I think she’ll be the fetish girl.’ So then I started researching about fetishes, and oh my God. There was (sic) so many! The craziest one that I heard was about a man, who, the only way he could climax, was being yelled at by a woman who was wearing all leather while he was naked under a trenchcoat, on his hands and knees, pushing a hard boiled egg across the floor.”

Anne Hathaway has admitted that she would have done anything to play the White Queen in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland. Hathaway joins Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Sheen, Christopher Lee and Alan Rickman in Burton’s re-telling of this classic story. In an interview with InStyle Magazine the actress said: “When I found out Tim Burton was on, I basically went into the studio and said, ‘I’m here, I want to play the White Queen. “I’m just letting you know I will do anything to be in this movie.’” The movie follows 19-year-old Alice who returns to the magical world from her childhood adventure, where she reunites with her old friends and learns of her true destiny: to end the Red Queen’s reign of terror.

Anne Hathaway thinks she’s “not very pretty”. “I think I’ve got really weird features,” Anne told InStyle magazine. “I have very large features on a very small head. “But, you know, I’m not going to beat myself up. It’s my face. I’m not very pretty. But that’s OK because I do know that I look like myself, and I think at the end of the day, as nice as pretty is, authenticity is more important. “If I don’t work out at all, I have too much curve and no tone—which is not OK. It’s about finding balance.”

Anne Hathaway credits her parents with inspiring her acting ambitions at an early age – because they never prevented her from playing out her childhood fantasies. Hathaway grew up in New Jersey as the daughter of Kate MCCauley, an actress who toured in a production of Les Miserables. And The Devil Wears Prada star admits her parents’ emphasis on creativity encouraged her to perform. She tells Britain’s GQ magazine, “We were focused on theatre. I never dreamt about being a star or having my name up in lights. Creativity was encouraged in our family household, embraced even. I would walk around singing all day, doing scenes, pretending all day long. My two brothers loved that. My parents never said, ‘Pipe down!’ or ‘Quit that racket!’” But the 27 year old insists she never longed to be a famous Hollywood star. She adds, “I never had particularly romantic feelings about acting. My mother helped with that. I saw it as a job. An option.”

Anne Hathaway’s entire family denounced Catholicism after her elder brother Michael ‘came out’ as gay. The Devil Wears Prada star was a member of the Catholic Church growing up in New Jersey, but the actress and her parents, Gerald and Kate, as well as her younger sibling Thomas decided to leave the faith to support Michael after he revealed his sexuality. She tells Britain’s GQ magazine, “The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out. Why should I support an organisation that has a limited view of my beloved brother?” And Hathaway admits she’s still trying to figure out her religious beliefs: “So I’m… nothing (no denomination). F**k it, I’m forming. I’m a work in progress.”

Anne Hathaway was forced to arm-wrestle and slay a dragon to earn her Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year Award at America’s Harvard University on January 28. The Devil Wears Prada star was brought onstage by members of the Massachusetts institution’s amateur theatrical group, who poked fun at her career as part of the wacky annual ceremony. The all-male cast donned drag to portray Hathaway’s former co-stars Meryl Streep and Dame Julie Andrews, before forcing their honouree to sing, arm-wrestle and sword fight a student dressed as Puff Daddy the Magic Dragon. Hathaway was also treated to a ride in a convertible car for a parade, but insisted she didn’t mind the freezing temperatures and snowfall: “Personally with my skin tone, I probably would have gotten a sunburn, so the weather was perfect for me!” Last year, Renee Zellweger was forced to dress up in a fat suit to accept the Woman of the Year prize.

Anne Hathaway admits that “full-on movie kissing” isn’t one of her strong suits, and that she’s jealous of Jolie’s luscious lips. “It’s a totally different experience,” Anne told the U.K. edition of GQ magazine of the forceful kiss. “But really you have to be Angelina Jolie to pull that off and still look good. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I ain’t no Angie.” Anne’s tip for the perfect smooch? “You have to leave your mouth open a little bit,” she says. “Open up. More, more, ever so lightly… Otherwise you’re going to be getting smoothy. Now, slow it down … just a little bit.”

Anne Hathaway turned down the title role in Tim Burton’s new Alice in Wonderland movie – because she was fed up with playing a “pretty girl in a fairy dress.” The actress was asked to star as Alice in the upcoming fantasy film but opted instead to play the White Queen – because she had previously played a pretty protagonist in The Princess Diaries movies which launched her career. The role of Alice eventually went to Australian newcomer Mia Wasikowska, but Hathaway has no regrets about her decision. She says, “The studio had the Alice script a long time ago and I was approached back then for the part of Alice. I considered it, but felt, what with The Princess Diaries, that I had been there, done that sort of pretty-girl-in-a-fairy-dress role. I told the studio, however, that if they found a director eventually, that I would be interested at a later date in playing the White Queen. “When Tim came on board he had the cast he wanted and, of course, that didn’t include me. But the other actress who was marked had scheduling conflicts, so the studio piped up and put me forward. I talked on the phone with Tim and he really liked my take. I wanted the Queen to be a cross between Debbie Harry, Greta Garbo, David Bowie, with (a) little bit of the work of Dan Flavin thrown in for good measure.” And the 27 year old is confident cinema-goers will love Burton’s interpretation of the Lewis Carroll classic, adding, “I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to tell you but no one’s given me my marching orders as yet. It’s not exactly Alice in Wonderland, nor Through The Looking Glass. Tim has Alice come back to Wonderland – but ten years later.”

Prosecutors in New York are set to auction off jewellery given to Anne Hathaway from her ex-fiance, conman Raffaello Follieri. The Italian businessman was sentenced to four-and-a-half years behind bars in December 2008 after pleading guilty to 14 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Hathaway dumped Follieri in June 2008, shortly before he was arrested by federal authorities and admitted to scamming more than $3.6 million (£2.25 million) from investment and real estate firms. The Devil Wears Prada actress was forced to hand over all the expensive gifts Follieri had lavished on her during their four-year romance for prosecutors to use as evidence in the case. Items including Rolex watches, a five-strand pearl necklace, two rings and a Louis Vuitton box, are among 30 valuables “recovered… from an individual who received them from the defendant,” according to legal papers filed in Manhattan federal court. The jewels are expected to go under the hammer later this year, reports the New York Post.

Hathaway — who received an Oscar nod for her role in the film Rachel Getting Married — also revealed she’d quite like to be on TV. “I just go where the work is good and where the offers are for good work, so if someone were to offer me something wonderful, I would love it,” she said. “I love what Claire Danes did with [TV biopic] Temple Grandin. “I think we should probably adopt the British system where there is more of a symbiosis between theater, film and television and let the jobs go around. But I just wish there were more jobs for more good actors.”