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Anne Hathaway Left Jennifer Lawrence’s Silver Linings Playbook Role Over “Creative Differences” With Director

Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence
During an interview on Howard Stern's radio show, Harvey Weinstein revealed that Anne Hathaway had originally been given Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar-winning role in Silver Linings Playbook, but dropped out over "creative differences" with director David O. Russell.

Well, at least they both won Oscars! During an interview on Howard Stern's radio show Wednesday, Jan. 15, film producer and studio head Harvey Weinstein revealed that Anne Hathaway had originally been given Jennifer Lawrence's role in Silver Linings Playbook, but dropped out due to "creative differences."

"Does it drive you insane when you can't get your starlet, the one you know that is going to be right for the movie?" Stern asked The Weinstein Company co-chairman.

"It doesn't drive me insane because I've always believed if we can't get somebody established, we'll find somebody new," Weinstein, 61, said. "I'll give you an idea: Silver Linings Playbook was originally going to be with Anne Hathaway and Mark Wahlberg . . . and then Anne wasn't doing it. And she's marvelous, and wonderful and she was my choice, I love her."

Related: PHOTOS: Anne Hathaway's style evolution

"You made a move to get Anne Hathaway and you couldn't get her?" Stern asked.

"No we got her," Weinstein confirmed. "We had Annie and then we had Mark . . . then whatever happened, happened."

What exactly was it that happened?

"Well, David and Anne had some creative differences," Weinstein confessed. "They didn't see eye-to-eye."

Related: PHOTOS: Jennifer Lawrence's best dresses

"I bet she's kicking herself in the head," Stern quipped about not appearing in the acclaimed 2012 blockbuster. (Wahlberg was also replaced in Silver Linings Playbook by Bradley Cooper. In the film, Lawrence played a quirky, mentally unstable widow named Tiffany Maxwell who falls in love with Cooper's Patrick "Pat" Solitano, Jr., a Philadelphia-area man who suffers from bipolar disorder.) 

"Well, whatever. I don't think so," the studio exec said. "She went on to win the Academy Award for Les Miserables — maybe we're kicking [ourselves] in the head."

"Then Jennifer Lawrence and two or three other actress came in, and the minute we saw Jennifer Lawrence's tape . . . Because I said, 'How the hell are we gonna replace Annie?' And then this amazing creature walked in who is a brilliant actress, and so much fun, and she won an Oscar." (At last year's Oscars, Hathaway, 31, won Best Supporting Actress for Les Miserables, while Lawrence, 23, won Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook. Lawrence is expected to garner another Oscar nomination in yet another Russell production — American Hustle — when Academy Award nominations are announced on Thursday.)

Related: PHOTOS: Stars on set

As it turns out, Silver Linings Playbook wasn't the first time Hathaway has turned down a movie role that went on to become a big hit. In an interview with the July 2012 issue of Allure, Hathaway said dropped out of Katherine Heigl's role in the 2007 comedy Knocked Up due to a graphic birth scene.

"I thought about that [director] Judd [Apatow] was right to include the shot. I didn't disagree with the shot," she explained. "My issue with it was that having not experienced motherhood myself, I didn't know how I was gonna feel on the other side about giving birth. Because giving birth involves another human being, I didn't feel it was fair for me to make that call for myself." She added, "And by the way, I could pop out a kid and think, 'Oh, well, really should have done that movie.'"

Tell Us: Would Hathaway been good in Lawrence's Silver Linings Playbook role?

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