Beautiful Anne Hathaway is best known for her family-oriented roles in "The Princess Diaries" and "Ella Enchanted." But the Brooklyn-born actress has diversified her resume immensely this year with her roles in "Havoc" and the movie that is on the tip of everyone's tongues nowadays, "Brokeback Mountain."

"Brokeback Mountain" is based on the short novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Annie Proulx and tells the story of two Wyoming cowboys and their struggle and journey of love over the course of twenty years. Ennis' (Heath Ledger) and Jack's (Jake Gyllenhaal) tale begins during the summer of 1963 on Brokeback Mountain where their romance roams quietly and unaffected by the prejudices of the outer world. But after their work watching over sheep is over, reality quickly hits in as Ennis goes back to his fiance (Michelle Williams) while Jack takes up a role as a rodeo cowboy. Jack meets Lureen (Anne Hathaway), the daughter of a rich business tycoon who provides a spark of life in Jack as he spends his days depressed about his complex relationship. Soon afterwards, the two get married and start a family, but Jack continues to believe day by day that there is someone else for him as his true life partner.

Anne was in New York City recently to talk about working with director Ang Lee and the questions she hopes "Brokeback Mountain" will stir in conversation.

Q: Jack and Ennis are suffering from being separated from one another, but the women in this movie suffer too. Do you think your character had any idea what was going on?

ANNE: That is the million dollar question, isn’t it? Everybody wants to know the answer to that and I’m sorry, I’ve actually made a choice not to say because I think it changes a film when you know. I think the answer is pretty obvious but for some people, I just think it’s something you need to decide for yourself.

Q: Did you answer the question for yourself?

ANNE: Yes I did. Oh you’re just burnin’ to ask aren’t you? [laughs] I thought you were going to say my relationship with the bleach bottle!

Q: Have you fell for someone who had a secret, or was gay for that matter?

ANNE: I was involved with someone who, looking back, I think was gay. I don’t think he knows. I hope he figures it out. We had a wonderful friendship.

This is completely unrelated to anything, but it’s shocking how many people I know, and I’ve known for years, that I find out that as children they were molested. It’s actually an epidemic in this country that has probably been the biggest secret I’ve ever discovered from someone that I really cared about.

Q: How did you come to this project? We heard Ang was very specific with picking actors for the roles…

ANNE: I did audition, actually. It’s really funny; Avy Kaufman, the casting director – I auditioned a few other times for other films – I can’t remember which one – but she knew that I could act and was something, for a while, Hollywood assumed I couldn’t [do].

Q: Why was that?

ANNE: Doing tiara flicks, people don’t take you seriously! She actually didn’t tell them that I had been in a “Princess Diaries” movie; she actually said that I was an unknown theater actress from New York. When I went in, Ang had no idea. He thought I was another girl coming; he didn’t know that I had had any kind of success. To him, I was just another struggling actress coming in. I became really confident after he cast me because he was really had nothing to do with anything I had ever done. It was actually an interpretation of a role.

Q: When you look at the two movies you’ve done this year, "Brokeback Mountain" and "Havoc", they’re really different from the “Princess Diaries” movies and “Ella Enchanted.” Was that a conscious choice?

ANNE: No. “Havoc” came because I was unavailable to do another film that I really wanted to do and we couldn’t work it out schedule-wise. I had a slot from when “Princess Diaries 2” was coming up so I just thought, “Well, this is interesting. This is a girl who is in a place in her life. The reason why I did ‘Havoc’ was that I asked myself, ‘What would have happened to me if I hadn’t been so focused on my career?’ What if I hadn’t grown up upper-middle class, but completely poor and unfocused?” So I wanted to explore that and see what it would’ve been like.

What was really cool about making the movie was that it made me really grateful for the choices that I have made, and the support my family gave me and the support to pursue a career at an early age, though I don’t think that’s the best thing for everybody but it worked out well for me.

There was no conscious decision for me to step away from anything because I didn’t feel bogged down. I didn’t feel at all trapped by the “Princess Diaries” movies. I’m actually quite proud of them. I just wanted to try something new as an actress. There wasn’t any kind of shrewd career strategy going on.

Q: Do you feel more of resentment to Jack and Ennis or to the society that put them their position?

ANNE: Me personally, I feel a lot more resentment about the society because I understand the situation that Jack and Ennis were in. It’s so funny because in this situation, they were trailblazers but what I think the film does is that it doesn’t necessarily blame society more, but that it blames individuals because Ennis – the one thing that’s keeping him so afraid, so trapped is the image he saw when he was younger with a man in a relationship named Earl, and what had happened to him. That leaves an impact and I’m horrified that as human beings, we could ever do anything that violent over the way God would make one of us. So for me, personally, I guess it would be society. But after playing the coupled wife, you would hope that there would be some honesty in a relationship, that that wasn’t the relationship Jack and Lureen had, that it wasn’t all that emotionally close.

Q: Why do you think your character chose to stay with Jack?

ANNE: I don’t know. I think a lot of it has to do with the person Ennis was becoming in his relationship. He wasn’t the person he wanted to be. I think one of the reasons why Jack and Lureen stayed together was they had money. They were comfortable; Ennis and Alma, everything was a struggle for them. When you don’t have a partner with that [wealth], it makes it ten times harder. They weren’t partners anymore. In the beginning of the relationship, you could see the partnership that was there. With Lureen and Jack, a lot of it became about appearances. It was just easier to stay together then it was to leave together and start different things, divide up the assets, share the kid. It was a lot easier to stay together. I practically don’t think Lureen would have even allowed divorce.

Q: Did you have conversations about Ang in regards to the evolution of your character?

ANNE: Oh yeah. I had a lot of conversations with Ang about what would have happened in between, say, these three years. What would have happened in between these five years and you would say that they got promoted here, and they bought a new house here. Once we decided what had happened, I just went out and said, “Here’s where they are. Here’s when they moved. Here’s when they join country club. Here’s when she might have had a miscarriage. That’s part of the fun of it as an actor; to create a life that nobody knows about.

Q: Is this a new beginning for your career?

ANNE: Oh no, no no. I don’t want to think about it as any grand terms and I don’t want to be looking at my career in hindsight already. This was a really liberating role for me and it taught me a lot of things about the excellence of what filmmaking can achieve. I’m certainly learning a lot from it but no, I’m not ready to start labeling anything. I’m always looking for the next job frankly. That’s where I’m at right now; I want to know what I’m doing next year.

Q: So what is your next project?

ANNE: Right now, I have to finish “The Devil Wears Prada”. In January, I’m going to Ethiopia for the CARE organization. I’m working with them on a new program to empower women in third world countries especially. Lately they’ve been doing unbelievable work going into areas and trying to help fix problems and having more of a proactive role rather than a reactive role. One of the things that they say that they think is going to be what is the cornerstone of civilization thriving in those countries is women in the workforce. It’s about culturally influencing people; empowering women and giving them opportunities and havens when they’re not accepted or thrown out of their homes so women can be brave enough to make choices and not be punished for them.

Q: Was this influenced by your work with Angelina Jolie in Cambodia?

ANNE: It was definitely an influence. When Angie came along to give me that opportunity, it was something I wanted to do for a long time. I’ve been working with a lot of domestic charities but that was kind of my first international thing and I definitely caught the bug. She gave me such an extraordinary gift with letting me be part of that project. She gave me a new perspective from which to view life. I think I was 22 when I did it. I’m here wearing a jacket that could support 20 Cambodian families for a month. Obviously, I’m not keeping it but I never thought in those terms before. I used to hate my thighs. Now I’m grateful they weren’t blown off by a landmine. It’s just an amazing perspective to have on life, and to have it so young, I just feel like the rest of my life is such a gift and filled with so much potential and possibility as opposed to anxiety, which is what I used to feel.

Q: What do you think will happen to the world at large if this film gets an Oscar nomination?

ANNE: I think it’s a huge step forward. More important than the Oscar nomination is that more people will see the film. What I think is going to be a huge indicator of the effect the film made is the DVD sales because what a lot of people won’t support publicly, they will definitely want to check out privately. The Oscars would be great, but for Hollywood to reward this sort of thing is not that far a leap. What I think will make a difference is the viewership of the film. I don’t care how people see it, whether in theaters or in their own homes. I just want people to give it a chance because the thing that I’m most proud of in the film and the thing it accomplishes the best is that it portrays a gay relationship without using any stereotypes. At last, gay people are reflected as human beings.

"Brokeback Mountain" is now playing in limited release in theaters everywhere.