Anne Hathaway was promoting her new The Idea of You film, an adaptation of Robinne Lee’s novel, on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Monday (April 29) when she experienced an awkward moment with the live audience, which was quickly saved by Jimmy Fallon’s sharp humor.
In a clip of the segment shared on YouTube, at about 7:55 in, the 41-year-old actress enthusiastically asked the crowd: “Has anybody here read the book?” only to be greeted by complete and uncomfortable silence.
The awkward silence was so profound that you could hear a pin drop, prompting Anne to look seemingly embarrassed.
Anne Hathaway encountered an awkward moment on The Tonight Show when she was met with a deafening silence
The Oscar winner was even filmed briefly gasping before covering her mouth with her hand in apparent shock upon noticing the spectators’ total hush.
That’s when the 49-year-old live show host immediately rescued the moment, turning the attention from Anne to himself and his studio, as he joked: “No, we don’t read.”
Jimmy quipped: “This is The Tonight Show.
“You want to go to Stephen Colbert if you want to get people who read books. Lame!
“We do Audible here, does that count?”
The Princess Diaries star appeared relieved and struggled to regain her composure as she burst into hysterical laughter at the comedian’s remarks.
Anne finally collected herself before adding a joke of her own: “What’s a book?”
The segment began circulating on social media, as an X user (formerly known as Twitter) commented: “Jimmy actually was a great host in this situation!”
Promoting The Idea of You, Anne asked about the audience’s familiarity with the book
A person wrote: “‘You wanna go to Stephen Colbert’ is actually a very smart joke right off the cuff.”
Someone else penned: “You can literally hear the air conditioning running lmao.”
A separate individual chimed in: “Jimmy knows his demo lol.”
Nevertheless, a viewer highlighted the fact that Jimmy does, in fact, indulge in the occasional reading, as they wrote: “It’s funnier when you are a part of Jimmy Fallon’s Book Club that is currently reading Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra!”
The Fallon Book Club originally debuted in 2018 as the Tonight Show Summer Reads and was relaunched in March.
“If you know me, you know I’m always looking for a good book to read. And that’s why I’m very excited to announce this,” the former SNL star told NBC back in March.
“Normally, the way this works is we pick a handful of books and we vote to see who the winner is. And that’s the book we read together. But this time, we’re changing it up.”
The awkward silence was swiftly diffused by Jimmy Fallon’s quick wit
The Idea of You was released today (May 2) on Prime Video and has already received some mixed reviews.
IMDb described the plot as centered on Solène (Anne), a 40-year-old single mom, who begins an unexpected romance with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the lead singer of August Moon, the hottest boy band on the planet.
“Hathaway’s pristine glamour is such that it leads us not to wonder why a 24-year-old could-have-anyone heartthrob would be so very taken by an unfamous woman old enough to be his mother and more to wonder what 24-year-old wouldn’t,” The Guardian argued.
Image credits: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
The British paper continued: “The film briefly touches upon issues of misogyny and ageism but only very lightly, Solène’s life-based in almost as much fantasy as that of Hayes (her house is as idyllic as the hotel rooms she’s whisked away to).
“The script, from [Michael] Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt, might be written with more thought than one has come to expect from a streaming romcom – the low bar has meant that dialogue that just about makes sense is cause for applause – but enough so that one then starts to expect just a little bit more texture.
“Solène and Hayes are both a little too dreamily constructed to ever feel like real people and there’s such little interest in any other character in the film that, like an actual dream, it can be a little too tightly focused.”
“The silence was loud,” a reader commented
