Anne said in a 2019 interview with People: “Can I make some tea? I turned down the gig, and James was the one who convinced me to do it.”
Recalling how horribly the night went, the star added: “When all the dust settled, I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Your first instinct is usually right… “Every reason I said no has come true.”
James said in a 2016 interview with New York Magazine: “When Anne Hathaway decided to host the Oscars with me… Let’s just do it. This is going to be an adventure,’ and then we got a lot of shit about it. Maybe I got more out of it than she did. But she gained a lot.”
He went on to downplay the negative reaction, claiming: “I’m going to do what they ask of me and I’m going to do it as best as I can. But this isn’t necessary to be the best Oscar. I get nothing from it. In the best case scenario, if I kill it, it won’t help my career. Because it’s not the foundation. “It was an experiment.”
