Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) is imagined by James Joyce's character Stephen Dedalus, who makes a number of references to Hathaway. In "Ulysses", he speculates that the gift of the infamous "second-best bed" was a punishment for her adultery, and earlier in the same novel, Dedalus analyses Shakespeare's marriage with a pun: "He chose badly? He was chosen, it seems to me. If others have their will Ann hath a way." Anne also appears in Hubert Osborne's "The Shakespeare Play" (c.1911) and its sequel "The Good Men Do" (1917), which dramatises a meeting between the newly widowed Anne and her supposed old rival for William's
Anne Hathaway drama "The Other Side of Heaven", both 2001 Disney films, featured Hathaway in lead roles. Based on Meg Cabot's 2000 novel of the same name, the former follows a teenager Mia Thermopolis (Hathaway) who discovers that she is the heir to the throne of the fictional Kingdom of Genovia. Hathaway auditioned for the role during a flight layover on the way to New Zealand. Garry Marshall, the film's director, initially considered Liv Tyler for the role, but cast Hathaway after his granddaughters suggested that she had the best "princess" hair. The film became a major commercial success, grossing $165 million