7 things you probably never knew about “The Devil Wears Prada”

Happy birthday to The Devil Wears Prada! Our favorite fashionista movie turns 10 today! To celebrate, the major players in the Prada movie sat down with Variety to dish on everything that went down during filming. Here are 7 amazing things we never knew.

The person who inspired Meryl Streep’s character might not be who you think it was.

The Devil Wears Prada was based on Lauren Weisberger’s best-selling novel of the same name. Weisberger is a former employee of Vogue, where she once worked as Anna Wintour’s assistant. It’s widely believed her book was based on her experience at Vogue, and Weisberger is even on record as saying, “People always tell me I was ‘so brave’ to take on Vogue and the industry in the way I did, but I was more naive than I was brave. There were fresh wounds from working at Condé Nast and that’s simply what I knew best when I took on a novel.”

But as far as Streep’s performance, she was inspired by someone other than Anna Wintour. To bring Miranda to life, the actress channeled none other than Clint Eastwood. (Whoa, right? We didn’t see that one coming TBH.) Streep told Variety, “The voice I got from Clint Eastwood. He never, ever, ever raises his voice and everyone has to lean in to listen, and he is automatically the most powerful person in the room. But he is not funny. That I stole from Mike Nichols. The way the cruelest cutting remark, if it is delivered with a tiny self-amused curlicue of irony, is the most effective instruction, the most memorable correction, because everyone laughs, even the target. The walk, I’m afraid, is mine.”

Anne Hathaway wasn’t supposed to play Andy Sachs.

What?! But Hathaway was perfect as the earnest, fashion-challenged Andy. We can’t imagine anyone else taking down Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly. Apparently though, the studio originally wanted Rachel McAdams in the role. A solid choice, we’re sure. But Hathaway brought an exquisite vulnerable determination to the role that we just love.

Emily Blunt wore jeans and flip-flops to her first audition for the movie.

Her Prada character would be horrified. HORRIFIED.

The costumes for the movie cost more than $1 million.

Designer Patricia Fields created the gorgeous clothes for Prada, and the costume budget exceeded the $1 million mark. Totally believable. I mean, have you ever seen the whole Anne Hathaway fashion montage? It’s the stuff dreams are made of.

Emily Blunt stole one of her best lines from a mom in a grocery store.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Blunt discussed how she came up with one of most hilariously vicious insults: “I guess I steal from people I meet. Like, I saw a mother speaking to her child in a supermarket when we were shooting that film. And it’s a line that gets quoted back to me now. She yelled at her kid and she kind of opened and closed her hand and she goes [in harsh American accent], ‘Yeah, I’m hearing this, and I want to hear this.’ I went and put it in a movie, when Anne Hathaway is kind of talking to me, and I just told her that [to make her shut up].”

Ouch.

Meryl Streep changed Miranda’s famous last line.

According to Variety, at the table read for the movie, Streep switched a word in Miranda’s final line. The line originally read, “Everybody wants to be me,” but Streep changed it to, “Everybody wants to be us.” Which makes sense, because at the time Miranda and Andy are discussing Andie’s future.

Streep was also responsible for humanizing Miranda.

Meryl Streep thought it was important for Miranda Priestly to come across as an actual person rather than simply a caricature. So she suggested a scene that showed Miranda’s vulnerability. The result, of course, was the scene from her hotel room where she tells Andy about her impending divorce. She pulled it off like only Meryl Streep could. When we see Miranda in an unguarded, vulnerable moment, we sympathize with her for a split second, despite all the insane things she’s done during the course of the movie. Then, she deftly switches back into Devil mode like nothing ever happened.

#queen