10 Secrets About “The Devil Wears Prada”

The 2006 film, based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel and inspired by her experience at Vogue, grossed $326 million

The film “The Devil Wears Prada” has become a modern classic of cinema, revealing the cutthroat, glamorous world of fashion through the eyes of a newcomer assistant. Based on the book of the same name by Lauren Weisberger, the story follows Andy Sachs as he navigates the demands of working for feared editor Miranda Priestly, a character inspired by legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

However, behind the scenes, there are a series of secrets and anecdotes that made this iconic film possible.

Anna Wintour’s influence made it difficult to obtain iconic locations for the film

The film version of The Devil Wears Prada was already in development before the book hit bookstores. The first 100 pages and an outline were enough to convince Fox executives to take an interest in the clef novel based on author Lauren Weisberger’s brief stint at Vogue as an assistant to editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. “I was the first person to read it at Fox in 2000,” former studio executive vice president Carla Hacken told Variety in 2016. “I thought Miranda Priestly was one of the greatest villains ever. I remember we aggressively went in and bought her.”

The adaptation began before the New York Times bestseller was released in 2003, but following four writers attempted to create a straightforward narrative, Aline Brosh McKenna was tasked with creating a new script focused on the sacrifices women make to rise in fashion magazines. “I wrote a draft pretty quickly, it took me regarding a month,” McKenna told the outlet. “Then I rewrote it based on everyone’s notes.”

Anna Wintour, chief editor of the US edition of Vogue (REUTERS/Johanna Geron)

Wintour’s story created many difficulties for the production. “I had enormous trouble finding anyone in the fashion world who would talk to me, because people were afraid of Anna and Vogue, they didn’t want to be excluded,” McKenna told Entertainment Weekly of her research. “There was one person who spoke to me, whose name I will never divulge, who read it and said, ‘The people in this movie are too nice. Nobody in that world is too nice. They don’t have to be and they don’t have time to be. ’ After that, I made a pass at everyone being a little busier and meaner.”

“Wintour’s vast reach made it difficult to secure locations,” director David Frankel admitted to EW. “The Met Ball meant the Metropolitan Museum wanted nothing to do with us,” he said. Bryant Park, then home to New York Fashion Week, was also out. “Even in those iconic apartment buildings we looked at as possibilities for Miranda’s apartment, the co-op boards wouldn’t let us in,” he shared. Ultimately, they borrowed a five-story Upper East Side townhouse from a friend of producer Wendy Finerman.

The casting of Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly was a unanimous decision from the start (REX/Shutterstock)

But there was one scenario where they got it right. “The only contact we had with Vogue was with Jess Gonchor, the production designer, who snuck into their offices to take a look at Anna’s office,” Frankel revealed to EW. “She was able to recreate the office so authentically that I’m told Anna redecorated hers immediately following the film was released.”

The Devil Wears Prada – Anne Hathaway – Stanley Tucci (Disney/20th Century Studios)

The costumes also presented a unique challenge. At first, Frankel told EW, they mightn’t convince any well-known designers to lend pieces for the film: “They just didn’t want to incur Anna’s wrath.” Enter legendary costume designer Patricia Field, who worked magic by assembling a collection of some 150 pieces from Donna Karan, Zac Posen, Rick Owens, and, yes, Prada, while being careful to differentiate the demanding Miranda Priestly from Meryl Streep from the Wintour. “She borrowed everything — we had to be very careful not to eat spaghetti for lunch,” Streep noted, “because it would go out front and you mightn’t give it back!”

Wintour has at least a mild sense of humor regarding the whole thing. Streep sat down with the Vogue editor for the fashion bible’s 125th anniversary issue, and shared her experience playing Wintour’s late friend Katherine Graham in 2017’s The Post. Asked what the most challenging character she’d ever played was, Streep replied, “Oh! I should say…” and trailed off when Wintour interjected. “No, no!” she said, laughing. “We’re not going to get to that point, Meryl.”

Production designer Jess Gonchor faithfully recreated Anna Wintour’s office by looking at the Vogue offices

Wintour did attend a screening, the same one that her former assistant Weisberger did, in fact. “It was entertainment,” Wintour later told 60 Minutes of the film. “It was not a true representation of what goes on inside this magazine.”

Streep was the only choice to play Miranda. Hacken, a studio vice president, admitted to Variety that they hadn’t actually considered any other actresses. “I don’t remember saying anything other than, ‘Please, God, let it be Meryl,’” she said. When the Oscar winner’s agent called to say she’d read the script and would be meeting with the director, Hacken briefly put him on hold to celebrate.

“I was screaming in my office.” Streep told EW that she appreciated the character’s toughness and determination not to make herself less: “I liked that she didn’t shy away from the horrible parts of her, and the really scary parts of her had to do with the fact that she didn’t try to ingratiate herself, which is always the female emollient in any situation where you want to get your way, what my friend Carrie Fisher used to call ‘the squeeze and the tilt’ of it all. Miranda didn’t do any of that.”

The film version of “The Devil Wears Prada” began development before the book was released

She had other demands, too. Streep, wary of turning Miranda into a caricature, insisted on two scenes: what she called “the fashion business,” in which the tastemaker taught Andy how to wear her cerulean sweater, and “a scene where she’s without her armor, the unshaven scene in the hotel room.” The white hair was also her creation—Streep appeared with her icy locks for an interview with the studio head. As director Frankel recalled to EW, “Meryl channeled Miranda in that meeting, and there was no conversation regarding hair; they looked Meryl in the eye and never said a word.”

Patricia Field assembled a collection of 150 pieces from top designers for the film’s costumes

Anne Hathaway had to work harder for her role than assistant Andy did for Miranda. Well, maybe not as hard, but as she said during an appearance on RuPaul’s Drag Race, “I was the ninth choice for The Devil Wears Prada.” Though Hathaway told Variety she didn’t have to audition, “I had to be patient” and launch a full-scale campaign that included tracing the words “hire me” in the sand of Hacken’s Zen garden. When Hathaway finally got the news, she was in her bedroom putting on a shirt. “I had some friends over,” she told the outlet. “I remember running out into my living room, half dressed, screaming, ‘I got The Devil Wears Prada! I got The Devil Wears Prada!’”

Anne Hathaway was the ninth choice to play Andy Sachs in “The Devil Wears Prada”

Luckily for Hathaway, the execs’ first choice turned them down. Repeatedly. “We offered it to Rachel McAdams three times,” director Frankel told EW of the actress, who was filming Fox’s The Family Stone at the time. After Mean Girls and The Notebook, McAdams said she didn’t want to dive headfirst into another mainstream movie. Frankel said, “The studio was determined to hire her, and she was determined not to.”

Streep and Hathaway’s involvement in the 2005 Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain helped seal the deal with the former “Princess Diaries” actress. “Meryl saw that scene in the movie,” Frankel recalled, “met with her and called Tom Rothman at Fox and said, ‘Yeah, this girl is great and I think we’ll work well together. ’”

Disney is developing a sequel to “The Devil Wears Prada” with the original cast in negotiations

Disney is developing a sequel to “The Devil Wears Prada,” with Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep in talks to return alongside Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. While there are no firm confirmations yet, Streep and Blunt are in advanced negotiations. The new film will tackle the fashion industry’s transition from print to digital. Director David Frankel, producer Wendy Finerman and original screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna are also attached to the project.