It is difficult to imagine The Devil Wears Prada with anyone else.

Meryl Streep barely raises her voice as Miranda Priestly and somehow makes an entire office panic.

Emily Blunt turns a supporting role into a collection of endlessly quotable insults.

Anne Hathaway walks into Runway as Andy Sachs, completely unimpressed by fashion, and slowly becomes someone capable of navigating Miranda’s world.

Twenty years later, those performances feel inevitable.

They weren’t.

In fact, the movie that audiences now know almost ended up with a very different group of women at its center.

Anne Hathaway has revealed that she was not the studio’s first choice to play Andy.

Or its second.

She says she was ninth.

And that is only the beginning of the casting story.

Rachel McAdams Was Asked Three Times

By the mid-2000s, Rachel McAdams was exactly the kind of young star a studio wanted.

She had recently appeared in Mean Girls and The Notebook, making her one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actresses.

The studio wanted her for Andy Sachs.

Director David Frankel later revealed that McAdams was offered the role three times.

She declined every time.

Other actresses considered for Andy included Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson and Kirsten Dunst. Juliette Lewis and Claire Danes were also among the names connected with the part.

And somewhere much farther down that list was Anne Hathaway.

Hathaway has now confirmed something she first discussed publicly years ago: she was the ninth choice.

She still remembers the names of the women ahead of her.

In 2026, she joked that they were practically “tattooed” onto her brain.

But while the studio was looking elsewhere, Hathaway desperately wanted the role.

She believed in Andy.

She believed in the movie.

And when enough other possibilities disappeared, the part finally became hers.

Twenty years later, it is almost impossible to separate Andy Sachs from Anne Hathaway.

Hollywood nearly did exactly that.

Meryl Streep Almost Said No for a Completely Different Reason

Miranda Priestly presented another problem.

Meryl Streep was already one of the most respected actresses alive when The Devil Wears Prada arrived.

But according to Streep, the original financial offer did not reflect what she believed she brought to the movie.

So she said no.

In 2026, Streep revealed that she had been considering retirement around that period and decided to test something she had taken decades to fully understand:

her bargaining power.

She asked for twice as much money.

The studio agreed almost immediately.

It is one of those Hollywood decisions that looks obvious only afterward.

Streep’s Miranda became the movie’s defining character.

The performance earned her another Academy Award nomination and helped transform Miranda Priestly from a potentially one-dimensional nightmare boss into something far more complicated.

And Streep made another crucial decision about the character.

She did not want Miranda screaming all the time.

Power, she realized, could be much quieter.

That soft voice became terrifying precisely because everyone around Miranda had to lean in to hear what she was saying.

Emily Blunt Showed Up in Jeans and Flip-Flops

Then there was Emily.

Emily Blunt was not yet the star audiences know today.

Her first audition for Miranda’s fiercely devoted assistant did not exactly scream high-fashion insider.

Blunt later recalled arriving in jeans and flip-flops.

The filmmakers liked what she did.

The studio simply wanted to see her once more — this time looking a little more like someone who might actually work at Runway.

Blunt remembered receiving the call while she was in a club in London. She returned the call from the bathroom and was told that the performance had worked, but she needed to come back dressed more appropriately for the character.

She did.

And Emily Charlton became the role that changed her career.

Blunt took what could have been a straightforward supporting character and made her unforgettable.

Her clipped delivery, panic, ambition and cruelty made Emily simultaneously awful and lovable.

One of her memorable insults was not even invented by the screenwriter.

Blunt later revealed that she had overheard a mother speaking harshly to a child in a supermarket and borrowed the delivery for Emily.

That willingness to bring pieces of real life into the character helped make Emily feel like someone who had existed at Runway long before Andy walked through the door.

Blunt Was Actually Intimidated by Streep

If Emily looked nervous around Miranda, some of that tension was apparently not difficult to access.

Blunt admitted in 2026 that she had been genuinely intimidated by Streep while filming the original movie.

Streep had intentionally maintained some emotional distance from the younger actors as part of her approach to Miranda.

It worked perhaps too well.

Blunt remembered being “quite scared” of her.

The result is visible onscreen.

Miranda never needs to explain why everyone is terrified.

The people around her already behave as though one disappointed glance could end a career.

Then a $35 Million Movie Became a Phenomenon

Nobody involved could have known quite how enduring the movie would become.

The Devil Wears Prada earned roughly $327 million worldwide and received two Academy Award nominations, including one for Streep.

But its real longevity came afterward.

The lines stayed alive.

The fashion stayed recognizable.

Arguments about Andy’s boyfriend never stopped.

Miranda’s cerulean speech became one of the most discussed monologues in modern workplace movies.

And three actresses who almost came together very differently became inseparable from the film.

That legacy eventually became powerful enough to bring them back.

Twenty Years Later, They Did It Again

In 2026, Streep, Hathaway and Blunt all returned for The Devil Wears Prada 2, along with Stanley Tucci.

The sequel changed the balance of power: Andy was no longer the inexperienced 22-year-old entering Miranda’s office, while Blunt’s Emily had become a powerful executive whose position gave her leverage over the woman she once desperately tried to please.

The sequel reunited performers whose lives and careers had changed dramatically since 2006.

Hathaway has won an Oscar.

Blunt has become a major dramatic and action star.

Streep has continued adding to one of the most celebrated careers in film history.

Yet none of that erases how unlikely their original combination actually was.

One actress was ninth on the list.

One initially refused the offer.

One showed up wearing flip-flops to audition for perhaps the most fashion-conscious character of her career.

Hollywood could easily have made different choices at every step.

It didn’t.

And two decades later, that series of near-misses looks less like a casting process and more like remarkably good luck.