Let’s hand it to Anne Hathaway, who swung by The Late Show this week for an unbearably charming interview filled to the brim with fun celeb tidbits. (You know who’s pissed about how hard it is to get drunk at the Met Gala? Hathaway and Colbert, duh.) But it was an anecdote about Meryl Streep during The Devil Wears Prada that Colbert himself could hardly believe — Hathway admitted how Streep remained closed-off throughout the filming process to better identify with her editrix character, with the ladies only getting to socialize in a scene that had them confined to a car. Hathaway pulled out all the punches to impress Streep with her culture knowledge — offering to lend her Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, or a Jeffrey Eugenides book — which seemed to be going well, until she made a comment about how The Daily Show With Jon Stewart was going to save America.
“Dead silence,†Hathaway recalled. “I’m sitting there in this silence thinking my life is over. And finally, finally, she goes, No, I don’t think Jon Stewart is going to save America. I think Stephen Colbert is.†Well, damn! “You were on the air for three weeks at that point,†she added, “and Meryl predicted that.†13 years later, maybe she was right.