From Aug ’06 Spotlight: The surprise hit of this summer is The Devil Wears Prada, which grossed over $80 million in domestic box office receipts in its first three weeks and will have topped the magic number ($100 million) by the time you read this column. Jewish audiences, however, might wonder if the two main characters, so clearly identified as Jewish in the book, are also supposed to be Jewish in the film. To answer this question, I tracked down Prada’s screenwriter, Aline Brosh McKenna. “I’m Jewish on both sides for centuries and my father is Israeli,” she told me. “The director [David Frankel] is also Jewish, and so, of course is Lauren Weisberger (who wrote the book). But I just felt like that wasn’t what this story was about.”
Aline describes Prada as “kind of a romance” between Andy Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway) and Miranda Priestly (played by Meryl Streep). “Everybody’s been that young person in the workplace for the first time; to succeed; you have to understand what the rules of that world are, and I think that’s true no matter where you work.”
Next up for Aline? “David and I are adapting another book called I Don’t Know How She Does It, and I’m also working on Sophie Kinsella’s novel The Undomestic Goddess.”
Click HERE for more of my chat with Aline:
