Actress Anne Hathaway has been named the world’s most beautiful person by People magazine.

The Devil Wears Prada star has received the publication’s annual honour, but in an accompanying interview, the 43-year-old admitted she spent decades feeling awkward about herself.

Asked if she ever had an awkward phase, she told the magazine in an interview released on Tuesday (Australian time): “For decades — decades. I think I had the longest unbroken awkward phase in Hollywood. Actually, I think mine extended until my late 30s.

“Pretty sure I knew because I was inside of it. I mean, you have your normal awkward phase when you’re a teenager. I just didn’t feel like I could get comfortable anywhere, you know? I couldn’t quite find my footing.

“When I was a kid, I found talking really difficult. So I had a bit of stress and anxiety around just, like, communicating.”

And Hathaway also admitted she had had plenty of beauty disasters over the years, largely because she didn’t quite understand the “language”.

“Multiple. I didn’t understand that there’s a whole language when it comes to beauty. For about 10 years I was asking for my hair to be done a certain way, and it never went the way I wanted. And then finally I showed someone a picture,” she said.

“I had been asking for texture, and I meant that I wanted, like, loose soft waves, and it took me a very long time to figure that out. Now I always show up with reference images.”

Hathaway has five movies – Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey, The End of Oak Street and Verity – due for release in 2026.