Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway Credits Her Dog for Landing Jane Role

By Sara Hammel

08/02/2007 at 02:00 PM EDT

What do a chocolate Labrador, a hotel slipper and extreme sleep deprivation have in common?

They're the three things Anne Hathaway credits for landing her the meaty role as Jane Austen in Becoming Jane, which opens Friday.

The actress, 24, says that the night before her second audition – the first went just okay, she was told – "my dog decided to eat the hotel slipper, so she was up the whole night vomiting. I slept maybe an hour."

Hathaway, known for fluffy, crown-wearing characters in Disney's Princess Diaries films, admits she had to beg for an audition in the first place. "I was associated with tiara flicks," she told Thursday’s Los Angeles Times.

"When I arrived at the interview, I was tired and wasn't in a very good mood. I guess Julian (Director Julian Jarrold) realized that I wasn't the bright, happy, smiley, untroubled girl from The Princess Diaries. He offered me the role after that."

The pup recovered from the incident, so Hathaway says, "I have to thank the maker of the hotel slipper that poisoned my dog."