Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) to liberate England from Spanish dominion. A similarly loveless relationship is depicted in the film "A Waste of Shame" (2005). "The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare" (2010), a novel by Arliss Ryan, also proposes Anne Hathaway as the true author of many of the Shakespeare plays (a claim originally made in 1938). In the novel, Anne follows Will to London to support his acting career. As he finds his true calling in writing, Anne's own literary skills flower, leading to a secret collaboration that makes William Shakespeare the foremost playwright in Elizabethan England. She is portrayed by Liza Tarbuck in
Anne Hathaway for the musical, Charles Isherwood of "Variety" called Hathaway the highlight of the show and "remarkably unaffected and winning", praising her convincing performance. She won a Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Female. Later, Hathaway voiced the audiobook release of the first three books in "The Princess Diaries" novels. Hathaway portrayed princesses and appeared in family-oriented films over the next three years, subsequently becoming known in mainstream media as a children's role model. After voicing Haru Yoshioka for the English version of "The Cat Returns" (2002), she starred in Douglas McGrath's comedy-drama "Nicholas Nickleby" (2002), which opened to positive reviews.