Hathaway’s career trajectory cannot be separated from her mother, Kate McCauley Hathaway. Kate was a working theater performer who toured extensively across the United States. Most notably, Kate played the tragic heroine Fantine in the first national tour of Les Misérables.
A six-year-old Anne watched her mother rehearse and perform from theater wings across regional venues. When Anne successfully auditioned for Tom Hooper’s 2012 film adaptation of the same musical, Kate stepped in as her primary coach. Anne's Oscar-winning portrayal of Fantine served as a direct generational dialogue with her mother's stage work decades earlier. Kate herself later appeared in Garry Marshall’s The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), performing a brief cameo alongside her daughter as a choir director.
Her father, Gerald Hathaway, provided the analytical counterweight. A high-stakes labor lawyer handling corporate disputes in Manhattan, Gerald instilled a sharp work ethic in his children. Colleagues noted that his legal preparation mirrored an actor's script analysis, teaching Anne how to break down scripts and negotiate studio contracts from her earliest days on the Fox series Get Real in 1999.
