It’s been 10 years since The Devil Wears Prada, the tell-all film about the inner workings of fashion (adapted from Lauren Weisberger’s best-selling roman á clef novel about her experience as Anna Wintour‘s assistant) debuted, but it’s hard to imagine thinking of fashion without conjuring up Meryl Streep’s icy Miranda Priestly and her shady one-liners (“Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.”) or the eager fashion assistants played by Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway. To celebrate the blockbuster fashion film, we’ve rounded up 13 little-known facts about the movie that will make you feel just like an industry insider.
Like Miranda Priestly, Meryl Streep leaned the hell in — and ended up doubling her salary: The actress told Variety that she had always been reluctant to negotiate for more pay, but changed her mind when she was consulted to star in The Devil Wears Prada. “The offer was to my mind slightly, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project,” Streep said. “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.”
The film dominated the box office: The movie clocked in at $326 million worldwide — even more noteworthy because it was made for a thrifty $41 million.
The movie has a celeb fanbase: John Legend told People that he and Chrissy Teigen love to re-watch the film. “We always joke about The Devil Wears Prada,” Legend said. “You can watch it every time it comes on, there’s just something about it.”
It formed professional partnerships: Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci don’t just make a dynamic duo in this film as Miranda and her right-hand, Nigel; they later teamed up again as husband and wife for 2009’s Julie and Julia.
It also created an off-screen romance: Stanley Tucci met his wife (Emily’s Blunt sister) at Blunt’s wedding, post-film, according to an anecdote by Blunt.
This marked Anne Hathaway’s first lead “adult” role: Although Hathaway had ventured into serious territory with Brokeback Mountain, she considers this role her turning point in Hollywood. “I’m proud of what I did. But amongst the showy roles, it’s the quiet one,” Hathaway told Variety. “I think what people saw was promising—it made people want to see more.”
Anne Hathaway took extreme measures to ensure she got the role: Anne Hathaway told Varietythat she traced, “hire me,” into the sand of the zen garden in the office of former Fox 2000 executive vice president Carla Hacken, after meeting with her about the role.
Meryl Streep tweaked her iconic last line: Variety reports that at the first table read, Streep poignantly changed her last line from “Everybody wants to be me” to “Everybody wants to be us.”
Streep had unlikely inspirations for her role as chic-as-hell villain, Miranda Priestly: Streep told Variety that she didn’t pull inspiration for her chilly fashion boss from Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, despite countless comparisons. Instead, she was inspired by Clint Eastwood for her icily calm, quiet voice, but aesthetically by legendary model and white hair enthusiast Carmen Dell’Orefice.
The costuming cost more than $1 million: Naturally, a movie about fashion needs a top-of-the-line wardrobe, but stylist Patricia Field spared no expense when it came to outfitting the cast. Despite multiple designer loans, she spent more than $1 million on costuming.
There probably won’t be a sequel: Fans of the film shouldn’t hold their breath for a sequel; Streep has privately said she’s not interested in a sequel, but Hathaway told Variety that the first film “might have just hit the right note. It’s good to leave it as it is.”
Anna Wintour had a subtle way of acknowledging her influence: Anna Wintour wore Prada to a special advance screening of the film, confirming that despite her nickname, “Nuclear Wintour,” she seems to have a healthy sense of humor. (Amy Schumer thinks so, too.)
Was life imitating art or art imitating life?: Author Lauren Weisberger (who was once Anna Wintour’s assistant) won’t explicitly say, but she has a brief, non-speaking cameo in the film as the twins’ nanny.
