Anne Hathaway‘s next role sees her play a popstar who finds a dark side in upcoming film Mother Mary, who she will star in with I May Destroy You‘s Michaela Coel.

Coel will play a fashion designer and a long-time friend of Hathaway’s character, who helped construct her public persona. The movie feels like an authentic story told partially through the music, even featuring songs by Swift’s producer of choice Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX.

Hathaway has opened up in an interview with Vogue about her experiences filming Mother Mary, which include complex choreography and intense bouts of singing and dancing.

“I had to submit to being a beginner,” she said. “The humility of that — showing up every day knowing you’re going to suck. And it has to be okay. You’re not ‘bad.’ You’re just a beginner. Getting to that mindset — I had to shed some things that were hard to shed. It was welcome. But it was hard, the way transformational experiences can be hard.”

Speaking of her ongoing choreography sessions, she describes “finally learning how to breathe”.

“My body was so locked up — I literally couldn’t take a deep breath. I’d been trying to open that space for years and I thought it was physically impossible. All my breath, it was stuck….”

The film, directed by David Lowery, has been described as weird. Coel has described the writing as “vivid”. “We were forced into an intensity,” she said, adding that she blew off steam by frequenting techno clubs in Cologne during filming. She even convinced Hathaway to go with her.

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