Colleen Hoover has certainly kept moving forward after the It Ends With Us legal drama with book-to-screen adaptations of Regretting You in 2025 and Reminders of Him hitting the 2026 movie calendar earlier this year. Right now, though, it’s Verity that’s got everybody worked up. With just a week until the erotic psychological thriller hits the big screen, it seems like everyone is buzzing about it — everyone, that is, except Josh Hartnett and Anne Hathaway’s families.
In Verity, Dakota Johnson plays Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling writer who is hired by Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett) to finish the book series his wife, bestselling author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) was working on before suffering a mysterious accident. Between director Michael Showalter, screenwriter Nick Antosca and Hathaway’s chilling blank stares in the trailer, it’s easy to see why people are excited, but Harnett said there’s one big holdout within his family. He told EW:
There’s one person who read the book who is absolutely not on board with me being Jeremy. That’s my goddaughter.
Apparently, Josh Hartnett’s 12-year-old goddaughter “loves the book,” but I thought maybe she would take issue with seeing her godfather in a movie that looks so spicy, bloody and disturbing. Nope, it turns out the content of the movie didn’t bother her. Hartnett continued:
She was like, ‘You’re playing Jeremy? You’re like 100 years old.’
Ouch! Humbled by a pre-teen. In the book Jeremy Crawford is around 40 years old, so technically, yes, Josh Hartnett is a tad older at 48, but that’s still some pretty tough feedback.
Anne Hathaway’s family members also apparently have concerns about seeing her in the role of Verity Crawford, but her parents’ issues don’t seem to be age-related. As she said:
My father stopped reading the book. My parents were like, ‘So what, what’s the premiere date for Verity?’ Having lived through The Idea of You with my parents coming to the premiere, I was like, ‘You know what, guys? I’m just gonna say, maybe you don’t need to come to this one.’ As soon as I pressed send, my dad was like, ‘Okay, that’s fine.’
Yeah, that unscripted “sexy makeout” scene between Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson’s characters might be a big selling point for audiences, but I can’t imagine that’s comfortable territory for Hathaway’s parents — especially if they felt awkward during her age-gap rom-com The Idea of You!
Anne Hathaway said her dad was actually listening to the Verity audiobook, and while that is one audiobook that comes highly recommended before seeing the film, the actress said her dad “actually had to stop listening to it.” Fair enough!
Thankfully for Mom and Pop Hathaway, they’ve had ample opportunity to catch their daughter on the big screen this year. Verity will be the actress’ fifth release of 2026, following Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey and The End of Oak Street.
Josh Hartnett and Anne Hathaway's families may be sitting Verity out, but I’ll definitely be there when the thriller hits theaters on Friday, October 2.
