'Eileen': Why Anne Hathaway describes new thriller as 'Carol' meets 'Reservoir Dogs'

Who doesn’t love some good movie math? That includes Anne Hathaway, who describes her new William Oldroyd-directed thriller Eileen as “Carol meets Reservoir Dogs.”

“When I say Carol, I should say kind of the first half of Carol, where you have two women who are very intrigued by each other, dancing around each other,” the actress explains in referencing Todd Haynes’s acclaimed 2015 lesbian love story ... along with Quentin Tarantino’s breakout 1992 heist film. “And then Reservoir Dogs in the sense that, I think a lot of people know that there’s a twist in this movie. The bottom sort of drops out of it, and that’s the way I feel about Reservoir. But also I love a story that really earns an unreliable narrator. That’s such a specific thing. People go for it. But in this particular one, you really don’t know who to trust in this movie, and I love that.”

The main candidates not to earn your trust are Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie), a lonely prison secretary in 1960s Massachusetts who fantasizes about killing her verbally abusive ex-cop father, and Rebecca (Hathaway), the glamorous psychologist who tempts the sexually frustrated Eileen after they begin working and socializing together.

The fact that Hathaway’s character is named Rebecca by author Ottessa Moshfegh — who adapted her 2015 novel with co-writer and husband Luke Goebel for the big screen — is a clear tip of the fedora to her femme fatale archetype. It feels like Rebecca was transported directly from the set of an Alfred Hitchcock classic like, well, the master of suspense’s 1940 favorite Rebecca.

“I love hearing that,” says Hathaway. “The hope was that she would feel like she’d stepped off of a Hitchcock set because I think she watched a lot of those movies. I think that clearly she invented every aspect of herself. She kind of was someone who didn’t see anyone like her in the world, and she really looked to find female role models, and I think she did turn to films. I think Katharine Hepburn was a big inspiration for her. When I was coming up with a character, I really listened to a lot of Patricia Neal, specifically. She does this one commercial for an instant coffee brand. And her voice is just fantastic in it. But in terms of our North Star screen goddess, it was Monica Vitti.”

The role also marks a rare blonde look for the Oscar-winning Les Misérables and The Devil Wears Prada actress.

“I tried to keep it quiet, to be honest,” Hathaway says when asked if she took her different hair color out for a spin in public. “It’s a funny thing nowadays, where it’s very hard to surprise an audience unless you’re filming inside of a studio and you build tunnels between your trailer to the set. It’s really hard to keep things under wraps. But no, I haven’t taken blonde for a spin yet. I’m happy with where I am, but we’ll see what the future may hold.”

McKenzie, the rising New Zealander best known for Leave No Trace, Jojo Rabbit and Last Night in Soho, had some more contemporary influences, admitting she may have watched some Ben Affleck and Matt Damon movies in mastering her thick Massachusetts accent.

“I was nervous about that because Ottessa, the writer, is from Massachusetts,” says McKenzie. “So when Will told me she’d be looking out for the accent, I was like, ‘I wish you hadn’t told me that!’ So [it was] a lot of work, and [there was] a lot of fear of getting it wrong, but it’s probably one of the most fun accents I’ve ever done. [The sounds] are weird, but in the best way. I don’t want to offend people from Massachusetts because I love the accents. ... They’re harsh sounds, but they feel really great in the mouth.”

Eileen opens in theaters on Dec. 1.