Anne Hathaway Denies Nate Is the Villain of 'The Devil Wears Prada' : 'They Were Both Very Young'

Anne Hathaway is forgiving of her The Devil Wears Prada character's love interest, Nate — even if many fans are not.

"Do you agree with fans that Nate was the true villain of The Devil Wears Prada?" a fan asked Hathaway during Monday night's Watch What Happens Live, much to Andy Cohen's delight.

"Yes! He was!" echoed Cohen, 54.

"Andy's answered for me," the 39-year-old actress joked, before going on to share her disagreement with the host: "No, I'm sorry, I don't. I think that they were both very young, and figuring things out."

In the 2006 hit movie, Hathaway portrayed Northwestern journalism grad Andy Sachs, who finds her personal relationships slipping with both her boyfriend, Nate (Adrian Grenier), and her friends as she navigates the demands of being assistant to Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the blunt and brutal editor-in-chief of Runway magazine.

Andy ultimately ends up choosing neither Nate nor Miranda, as the Oscar-nominated film ends with her finally settling into a journalism job she's happy with.

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In the years since its release, many fans have been oppositional to Nate's character, whom they see as the true villain in Andy's story — not her vicious boss, Miranda.

Hathaway, though, doesn't agree. "He did behave like a brat, but I also behaved like a brat in my 20s and I hopefully grew out of it," she told Cohen. "I think that that's what we all do. And I wouldn't want to be defined by my worst moment in my 20s, certainly, so I don't hold Nate as a villain, actually."

Grenier himself acknowledged the response to Nate's behavior from fans during a The Devil Wears Prada reunion interview with Entertainment Weekly last year. He was more understanding of the fans' opposition to Nate.

"I didn't see some of the subtleties and the nuance of this character and what it represented in the film until the wisdom of the masses came online and started to push against the character and throw him under the bus, and I got flak," said Grenier, 46.

"All those memes that came out were shocking to me," he continued. "It hadn't occurred to me until I started to really think about it ... in many ways, he's very selfish and self-involved, it was all about him; he wasn't extending himself to support Andy in her career."

Last month, Hathaway gave fans a treat with a New York Fashion Week ensemble that seemed an ode to her character, Andy.

The brown waist-length turtleneck, crocodile-printed mini skirt and overcoat looked like it could have been pulled straight out of the 2006 hit. Adding to the coincidence, Hathaway was seated next to Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour at the Michael Kors show. (Wintour, 72, provided the inspiration for Andy's boss Miranda in the movie and book of the same name.)

But the fashion moment was "an accident," Hathaway confirmed earlier this month on the TODAY show as host Savannah Guthrie pieced everything together.

Even her hair — curtain bangs and a high ponytail — seemed to be a nod to her Devil Wears Prada character. Hathaway said when her hairstylist put her locks into a ponytail, she looked in the mirror and thought to herself, " 'Oh that's funny, I wonder if anybody will notice?' "

"We noticed," Guthrie, 50, and Hathaway said in unison.