Fans can anticipate the comeback of Meryl Streep as the formidable Miranda Priestly in the eagerly awaited sequel to the 2006 hit film, set for release on May 1. The first teaser trailer offers a glimpse of Streep reprising her iconic role alongside Anne Hathaway’s return as Andy Sachs, setting the stage for a new chapter in the high-stakes world of fashion.
The trailer begins with the distinctive sound of ruby red heels clicking against an office floor, accompanied by visuals that capture the surreal glamour behind the scenes: clothing racks, celebrities on the red carpet, couture gowns being fitted, champagne celebrations, and flashing cameras. Although the initial focus is solely on the striking footwear, it becomes clear that only one woman could command such presence. The camera eventually reveals Miranda Priestly herself, elegantly dressed in a black-and-white houndstooth skirt accented by a red belt and black blouse, her signature white pixie haircut and black sunglasses completing the commanding look.
Unlike the first film, this sequel introduces a shift in dynamics. As the elevator doors begin to close, Andy Sachs steps in beside her former mentor, now a more confident and seasoned figure adorned in tasteful pearls and a tailored black vest, her hair styled in soft waves. The exchange between them is brief but telling: Andy greets Miranda with a simple “Miranda,” to which Miranda dryly replies, “Took you long enough.” Andy then dons her own pair of dark sunglasses, signaling her full integration into this world.
The trailer ends by highlighting the reunion of beloved cast members Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt. Fresh faces joining the ensemble include Simone Ashley, Pauline Chalamet, Justin Theroux, BJ Novak, and pop icon Lady Gaga, who was spotted filming in Milan on October 10. Despite the cast’s discretion about plot details, the excitement surrounding the film’s production, including scenes shot in New York City, has been palpable.
Emily Blunt humorously remarked on the overwhelming public interest, saying,
“We feel a little bit like zoo exhibits,”
to E! News in September, adding,
“But that’s OK. People are excited.”
As fans await more revelations, it’s worth revisiting the captivating history and behind-the-scenes stories of the original film, which remain a significant part of its enduring appeal.
The Early Development of The Devil Wears Prada Film
The film adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s novel began before the book’s official release in 2003, with the first 100 pages and an outline sufficient to convince Fox executives of its cinematic potential. Executive Carla Hacken recounted in 2016,
“I was the first person to read it at Fox 2000. I thought Miranda Priestly was one of the greatest villains ever. I remember we aggressively went in and scooped it up.”
This early enthusiasm propelled production forward well before the bestseller became widely known.
Initial screenplay drafts struggled to capture a definitive narrative until Aline Brosh McKenna was brought in. She refocused the story on the sacrifices and compromises women endure striving for success in the competitive environment of fashion magazines.
“I wrote a draft pretty quickly—it took me about a month,”
McKenna shared,
“Then I rewrote it based on everybody’s notes.”
Challenges Caused by Anna Wintour’s Influence
The real-life inspiration for Miranda Priestly, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, cast a long shadow on the production. McKenna explained the difficulty in conducting research, recalling,
“I had enormous trouble finding anyone in the fashion world who’d talk to me, because people were afraid of Anna and Vogue, not wanting to be blackballed.”
She added that one anonymous source told her,
“The people in this movie are too nice. No one in that world is too nice. They don’t have to be, and they don’t have time to be.”
Responding to this, the script was tweaked to make characters busier and somewhat harsher.
Director David Frankel described the obstacles in securing filming locations, noting,
“The Met Ball meant that the Metropolitan Museum wanted nothing to do with us,”
and Bryant Park, a hub of New York Fashion Week, was similarly unavailable.
“Even these iconic apartment buildings we saw as possibilities for Miranda’s apartment, the co-op boards wouldn’t let us in,”
Frankel said. A solution came when the production secured a five-story Upper East Side townhouse courtesy of a friend of producer Wendy Finerman.
Accurate Set Design Captures Vogue’s Environment
While many locations proved elusive, the production nailed the design of Vogue’s offices, a key setting for the film. Frankel credited production designer Jess Gonchor for secretly visiting the Vogue offices to study Anna Wintour’s space:
“He was able to re-create the office so authentically that I was told Anna redecorated hers immediately after the movie came out.”
This attention to detail enhanced the film’s credibility and visual impact.
Securing Designer Wardrobes Against All Odds
Fashion was central to the story, but initially, no major designers wanted to lend pieces to the project, fearing repercussions from Anna Wintour. Frankel revealed,
“They just didn’t want to incur the wrath of Anna.”
The project was rescued by legendary costume designer Patricia Field, who assembled around 150 pieces from designers like Donna Karan, Zac Posen, Rick Owens, and Prada. Field worked to distinguish Miranda Priestly’s wardrobe from its real-life muse.
Streep remarked on the preciousness of these garments, saying,
“She borrowed everything; we had to be very careful not to eat spaghetti at lunch, because it’d go down the front and they couldn’t return it!”
Anna Wintour’s Reactions and Interactions
Despite the clear tension around the film’s portrayal of the fashion world, Anna Wintour displayed a degree of humor about the project. During Vogue’s 125th anniversary issue, Streep spoke about playing Wintour’s friend Katherine Graham and touched on the challenge of portraying a figure like Miranda, with Wintour teasingly interrupting,
“No, no! We’re not going there, Meryl.”
Wintour did attend a screening of the film alongside Lauren Weisberger, later telling 60 Minutes,
“It was entertainment. It was not a true rendition of what happens within this magazine.”
Why Meryl Streep Was the Only Actress for Miranda Priestly
Carla Hacken admitted they never considered any other actress for the role of Miranda.
“I don’t remember anything other than, ‘Please God—let it be Meryl,’”
she said. When Streep’s agent contacted the studio to schedule a meeting, Hacken celebrated joyfully.
“I was shouting in my office.”
Streep appreciated Miranda’s complexity and unsparing nature, explaining,
“I liked that there wasn’t any backing away from the horrible parts of her, and the real scary parts of her had to do with the fact that she didn’t try to ingratiate, which is always the female emollient in any situation where you want your way—what my friend Carrie Fisher used to call ‘the squeezy and tilty’ of it all. [Miranda] didn’t do any of that.”
Meryl Streep Negotiates Her Worth Like Miranda
Before agreeing to the role, Streep asserted herself in a way akin to her character. Despite an impressive tally of two Oscars and eleven nominations, she had not mastered salary negotiations.
“The offer was, to my mind slightly, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project,”
she recalled.
“There was my ‘goodbye moment,’ and then they doubled the offer. I was 55, and I had just learned, at a very late date, how to deal on my own behalf.”
She also requested important scenes to prevent the character from becoming a caricature, including the iconic “business of fashion” lecture about the cerulean sweater and a vulnerable moment in a hotel room. The striking white hair was Streep’s choice; she arrived with the look for a meeting at the studio. Director Frankel remembered,
“Meryl channeled Miranda in that meeting, and there was no conversation about the hair; they looked into Meryl’s eyes and never said a word.”
Anne Hathaway’s Journey to Becoming Andy Sachs
Anne Hathaway disclosed she was the ninth casting choice for the role of Andy Sachs. Though she did not have to audition, she needed to be patient and launched a unique campaign to sway the producers, like tracing “hire me” in the sand of Carla Hacken’s zen garden. Her excitement upon receiving the role was palpable:
“I remember running out in my living room, half dressed, screaming—’I got The Devil Wears Prada! I got The Devil Wears Prada!’”
Interestingly, studio executives initially pursued other actresses. Director Frankel revealed,
“We offered it to Rachel McAdams three times.”
McAdams ultimately declined, preferring to steer clear of large mainstream projects despite her success with Mean Girls and The Notebook. Kate Hudson also turned down the role due to scheduling conflicts, later lamenting,
“It was one of those things where I couldn’t do it, and I should’ve made it happen, and I didn’t. That was one where when I saw it I was like, ‘Ugh.’”
Streep’s view of Hathaway’s performance in Brokeback Mountain convinced the studio of their compatibility.
“Meryl watched that scene from the movie,”
Frankel said,
“she met with her and called up Tom Rothman at Fox and said, ‘Yeah, this girl’s great, and I think we’ll work well together.’”
Casting Emily Blunt as the Ruthless Assistant Emily
The search for Miranda’s tough lead assistant was extensive, with over 100 actresses auditioning, including Tracie Thoms, who later played Andy’s friend Lily. However, it was Emily Blunt who captured the director’s attention despite an unconventional audition while rushing to catch a flight wearing sweatpants.
“I was rushing for the airport, and I remember just being kind of flustered,”
Blunt explained. Days after losing a role in Eragon, she received a call asking her to reprise the audition dressed the part.
Originally written as American, the character Emily was adapted to Blunt’s British accent after screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna worked with her,
“we went to a coffee shop, went through the script, and peppered it with Britishisms.”
Blunt also credited inspiration for a memorable line to a stressed mother she observed in a supermarket, saying,
“I saw a mother speaking to her child… ‘Yeah, I’m hearing this, and I want to hear this.’ I went and put it in the movie.”
Stanley Tucci’s Contributions to Nigel’s Wit
After an arduous casting process, Stanley Tucci accepted the role of Nigel, Runway’s art director, late in production. He embraced the character’s dry humor and improvised many memorable lines. Tucci fondly recalled,
“I love the scene when Miranda is first coming up to the office and everyone sort of panics. We all kept laughing so hard, and David kept throwing out lines for me to say and ‘Gird your loins’ was the one that made it in.”
Among the rejected lines was “Tits in!” which, Tucci admitted,
“was one I made up, but every time we laughed.”
Stanley Tucci’s Personal Life and Connections
Tucci remains closely connected with the film’s cast, maintaining a friendship with Emily Blunt that led to his marriage to her sister, Felicity Blunt. At the film’s 2006 premiere, while still married to his late wife Kate Tucci, who was battling breast cancer, he met Felicity. He recounted,
“She and Kate talked at the premiere that night and I have a photo of them together, which is so odd.”
Tucci and Felicity married in 2012 and have two children.
Tracie Thoms Cherishes Her Role as Lily
Tracie Thoms vividly remembers receiving the call offering her the role of Lily on her 30th birthday during a play workshop. She felt confident in her audition, saying,
“At that point in my career, I had kind of slipped into this best friend space. So I was like, ‘Oh, Lily’s easy. That’s right in my wheelhouse.’”
She described the news as “a good birthday memory,” received while having lunch in a cafeteria:
“It was like, ‘Hey, so you booked Devil Wears Prada. Happy birthday!’”
Thoms also noted Adrian Grenier’s savvy promotional skill, recalling how he managed autograph requests by handing out CDs for his alt-folk band, The Honey Brothers.
“He was using that opportunity to promote his band members, because he was not the frontman of the band,”
she explained.
“I thought that was really great how he dealt with everybody very specifically and appreciated their support, and tried to ricochet that support onto his colleagues.”
Lily’s Iconic Marc Jacobs Bag Nearly Became Tracie Thoms’ Keepsake
Aside from her overall positive experience, Tracie Thoms lamented missing out on keeping Lily’s coveted Marc Jacobs bag, a prop that inspired authentic reactions during filming. She asked the prop department to avoid showing her the purse beforehand to ensure genuine surprise:
“That, like, gasping and grabbing and ‘Gimme, gimme!’, that happened because that purse was gorgeous.”
Thoms had even envisioned a storyline around retaining the bag but the relevant scene was cut.
“So I never went back to work to get the purse. It was very sad.”
The Film’s Paris Shoot and Streep’s Limited Travel
Originally, no plans existed to film in Paris for Miranda and Andy’s trip to Paris Fashion Week, which surprised director Frankel: “I was aghast.” Eventually, a compelling sizzle reel secured extra funding for a summer release, allowing Hathaway and Simon Baker, who played Andy’s love interest Christian, to shoot in France for two days. However, Streep remained in New York for her scenes due to budget concerns over the cost of her travel.
Meryl Streep’s Method Approach Comes at a Cost
Streep fully embraced Miranda’s cold persona by distancing herself from on-set camaraderie, a commitment she later described as “horrible.” She told Entertainment Weekly,
“I could hear them all rocking and laughing. I was so depressed! I said, ‘Well, it’s the price you pay for being boss!’ That’s the last time I ever attempted a Method thing!”
Despite this, she offered Hathaway a bittersweet pep talk before filming began:
“I want you to know I think you’re going to be great, and I’m so happy to work with you…and that’s the last nice thing I’m going to say to you.”
