most valuable stars 2014

The 48 Stars That People Like Less Than Anne Hathaway

Photo: Maya Robinson

Spend a few minutes reading blog comments, and you might assume that Anne Hathaway’s approval rating falls somewhere between that of Boko Haram and paper cuts — but you’d actually be completely wrong. According to E-Poll likability data we factored into Vulture’s Most Valuable Stars list, the braying hordes of Hathaway haters are merely a very vocal minority. The numbers say that most people actually like her. Even more shocking? Who they like her more than.

In calculating their E-Score Celebrity rankings, E-Poll asked people how much they like a particular celebrity on a six-point scale, which ranged from “like a lot” to “dislike a lot.” The resulting Likability percentage is the number of respondents who indicated they either “like” Anne Hathaway or “like Anne Hathaway a lot.” Hathaway’s 2014 Likability percentage was 67 percent — up from 66 percent in 2013 — which doesn’t quite make her Will Smith (85 percent), Sandra Bullock (83 percent), Jennifer Lawrence (76 percent), or even Liam Neeson (79 percent), but it does put her well above plenty of stars whose appeal has never been so furiously impugned on Twitter.

Why? Well, why not? Anne Hathaway is a talented actress and seemingly a nice person. The objections to her boiled down to two main points: She tries too hard, and she’s overexposed. But she’s been absent from the screen since 2012’s Les Misérables, so it’s hard to call her overexposed now. And trying too hard isn’t the worst thing in the world, especially when you consider the alternative. Finally, it’s worth remembering that, even though everyone on your Twitter timeline was complaining about Hathaway last February, only 16 percent of U.S. adults use Twitter. There’s a whole world out there, and it’s full of people who have had fairly positive feelings towards Anne Hathaway this whole time.

We’ll warn you, though: The numbers below may surprise you. Is Hathaway — delightful though she may be — really better liked than Channing Tatum, Tina Fey, Chris Pratt, and Ryan Gosling? Apparently so. One assumes that some of the male heartthrobs who scored below Hathaway — like Tatum, Gosling, and Zac Efron — lost points with male respondents. And tabloid overexposure probably hurt stars like Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Kristen Stewart. Politics may have been a factor with respondents who disliked Fey and Will Ferrell. But whatever the reasons, Hathaway beat them all.

Here’s the data.

With her score of 67 percent, Hathaway is slightly less likable than these four stars:

Matthew McConaughey (68 percent)

Jeff Bridges (68 percent)

Anna Kendrick (68 percent)

Henry Cavill (68 percent)

And she’s exactly as likable as these seven gentlemen:

Mark Ruffalo (67 percent)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (67 percent)

Adam Sandler (67 percent)

Kevin Hart (67 percent)

Leonardo DiCaprio (67 percent)

Michael Fassbender (67 percent)

Kevin James (67 percent)

And she’s more likable than these 48 stars, including James Bond, Harry Potter, and the voice of Groot:

Kate Winslet (66 percent)

Zoe Saldana (66 percent)

Dwayne Johnson (66 percent)

Jennifer Aniston (66 percent)

Natalie Portman (66 percent)

Zach Galifianakis (66 percent)

Daniel Day-Lewis (65 percent)

Reese Witherspoon (65 percent)

Daniel Craig (65 percent)

George Clooney (65 percent)

Channing Tatum (64 percent)

Keira Knightley (64 percent)

Ben Stiller (64 percent)

Cate Blanchett (64 percent)

Robert Pattinson (64 percent)

Jonah Hill (63 percent)

Ben Affleck (62 percent)

Will Ferrell (62 percent)

Scarlett Johansson (61 percent)

Chloe Moretz (61 percent)

Chris Pratt (61 percent)

Javier Bardem (60 percent)

Vin Diesel (60 percent)

Chris Pine (60 percent)

Christian Bale (59 percent)

James Franco (59 percent)

Cameron Diaz (59 percent)

Jake Gyllenhaal (59 percent)

Jamie Foxx (59 percent)

Seth Rogen (59 percent)

Brad Pitt (58 percent)

Daniel Radcliffe (58 percent)

Ryan Gosling (58 percent)

James McAvoy (57 percent)

Shailene Woodley (57 percent)

Justin Timberlake (57 percent)

Naomi Watts (56 percent)

Andrew Garfield (54 percent)

Kristen Stewart (54 percent)

Russell Crowe (52 percent)

Angelina Jolie (50 percent)

Tyler Perry (50 percent)

Jessica Chastain (50 percent)

Penelope Cruz (49 percent)

Joaquin Phoenix (46 percent)

Zac Efron (41 percent)

Sean Penn (39 percent)

Tom Cruise (37 percent)

48 Stars People Like Less Than Anne Hathaway