Anne Hathaway has said she will miss Julie Andrews’ “sense of humor” in The Princess Diaries 3 after the acting legend passed on the offer.
Andrews, 90, who starred as Queen Clarisse Renaldi in the beloved 2001 family comedy and its 2004 sequel, recently revealed she won’t appear in the forthcoming installment, telling InStyle magazine last week, “I think I’m retired, really, would be about the best description for that.”
While the Mary Poppins star admitted that it was “very hard to say no,” she added, “I thought I had a wonderful ride, and this one I felt would flourish very well and wouldn’t need Granny going in there at my age.”
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly at Disney’s D23 fan event, Hathaway, 43, who will reprise her role as Mia Thermopolis in the third movie, said of Andrews: “She’s so warm and she’s so gracious and she’s so funny.
“She brings magic with her wherever she goes. She’s this amazing love conductor,” the Devil Wears Prada actor gushed. “People feel so safe loving her, and she’s so beautiful at receiving love and giving it back to people. And who doesn’t want to be around people like that.”
Adapted from Meg Cabot’s popular 2000 young adult novel of the same name, The Princess Diaries follows Mia, a shy San Francisco high schooler, who discovers that her grandma (Andrews) is the Queen of Genovia, making her the Princess of Genovia.
The 2004 sequel, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, sees Mia return to Genovia and learn that she must marry within 30 days to become Queen.
In addition to Hathaway, Chris Pine and Robert Schwartzman will return for The Princess Diaries 3 as Hathaway’s love interests, Nicholas Devereaux and Michael Moscovitz, respectively.
“There is a part for everybody, because there’s a thing that happens where everyone has to show up. Robert Schwartzman’s in it. Chris Pine obviously is in it. Although he says he’s not, but he is,” author Cabot said in April at New York City’s 2026 BookCon.
Adele Lim will take over for the late Garry Marshall as the director of the third film.
Andrews, a Tony-nominated and Oscar-winning actor known for starring in a handful of Broadway classics, including My Fair Lady and Camelot, as well as movie musicals, such as Mary Poppins (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965), previously expressed her concerns about appearing in The Princess Diaries 3.
“It’s quite a long time now since the two Diaries were done, and I’m not sure, but sometimes it’s best to leave a good thing alone,” she told Today.com in 2024. “I don’t like it when people milk and milk and milk the subject, you know, ‘til it’s dead.”
Last week, the British icon further clarified to The Hollywood Reporter that “I’m not completely retired, but it’s a different kind of work that I do these days — [writing] books, and I do a lot of recording of podcasts and voiceovers. But truly, I don’t think I should be a part of it.”
