Anne Hathaway: My Fans Booed Me at the BAFTA Awards

USMagazine, Thursday, February 14, 2013, 8:30am (PST)

Anne Hathaway always tries her hardest to make the best out of a bad situation. Appearing on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno Feb. 13, the Les Miserables star explained why the Feb 10 BAFTA Awards in London became a last-minute nightmare.

"I was getting ready for the BAFTAs and I was wearing this beautiful dress. It was such a fairy tale moment -- this dress had been custom-made for me, designed with me in mind. It was was wonderful," she recalled. "And the zipper broke while they were putting it on me."

Horrified, Hathaway's stylist ran out of the room. "I don't know where she went," the actress laughed. "She just ran away. We all stayed very calm and I said,'Listen, no worries. We have a backup dress. Let's see if we can't sew me into it?'"

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"My hair guy -- out of nowhere! -- pulls up these amazing tailor skills and he sews me into the dress. I look at it, and he's done as good a job as anyone could, but I look like a turkey that has been sewn together," Hathaway admitted. "It's just not good. Everyone was like, 'It looks great! You can do it! Totally! It works! Yay! We did it!'"

Unconvinced -- and terrified of being put on a worst-dressed list -- Hathaway sought the advice of her longtime publicist. "He gave it like a really intense 15-second stare and said, 'It's not going to work.' So we cut me out of the dress, put the one that I wound up wearing, and that was that."

Hathaway, 30, walked the red carpet wearing a "perfectly gorgeous" Burberry dress "How irritating am I?" she asked. "Most women don't even have one great dress. I have two."

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Unfortunately, the sartorial snafu caused the star to fall behind schedule. "I was so late that I had to run straight to the end of the carpet and miss all of the interviews. The worst part was I missed the fans. They were out in the cold, and the rain, and the sleet and everything, and they booed me. So I'm just running down the carpet, getting booed, and I'm just trying to be like, 'I'm so sorry! I'm so late!'"

Despite the incident, Hathaway -- who won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- found a silver lining in the night. "I got booed, my dress ripped and I had the flu, but it turned out great because I got to hug George Clooney!"

After beating fellow nominees Amy Adams (The Master), Judi Dench (Skyfall), Sally Field (Lincoln) and Helen Hunt (The Sessions), Adam Shulman's wife spoke to Us Weekly and other reporters backstage at Royal Albert Hall. "I'm overjoyed and I'm such an airhead right now, which is nothing new. It feels incredible. I'm so surprised," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm still collecting myself."

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Hathaway, who said she's "coming down with laryngitis," added that she's not stressing about the upcoming Academy Awards, for which she also earned a Best Supporting Actress nod.

"This is spectacular, I love it, but this is not what it's about," she explained. "I don't think ahead. I'm just so happy to here in the conversation at this time of the year. Whatever happens in two weeks, happens in two weeks. It won't be the worst thing to happen to me if I don't win, and with my husband by my side, [winning] won't be the best thing to happen to me either, so I'm feeling very good about whatever happens."

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Anne Hathaway: My Fans Booed Me at the BAFTA Awards