As a film, The Devil Wears Prada made the characters of Miranda, Andy, Emily, and Nigel iconic—like designer-clad Avengers, each with a signature look and signature lines (“That’s all,” “Can you please spell Gabbana,” “When I feel like I’m about to faint I eat a cube of cheese,” “Gird your loins,” etc.). But how much of that, exactly, is owed to Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel, and what was simply the invention of screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna and director David Frankel? We are so glad you asked.
Here, a breakdown of how Miranda, Andy, Emily, Nigel, and co. in The Devil Wears Prada the novel compare to their counterparts in The Devil Wears Prada the film—and which one we think wins out.
Andrea (”Andy”) Sachs, second assistant to the editor-in-chief of Runway
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, Anne Hathaway (wearing a Chanel necklace), 2006, TM & Copyright (c) 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved.Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection
How she’s introduced:
While, in the film’s iconic opening montage, we first meet Andy jovially putting on her less-than-great interview outfit, unglamorously brushing her teeth, and (gasp!) eating an onion bagel, in Weisberger’s original text we meet her in medias res as Miranda’s assistant, inexpertly driving her boss’s luxury convertible across town while clad in suede Gucci pants and Manolos. Both are recent college graduates—Book Andy from Brown, Movie Andy from Northwestern—with dreams of being a “real” journalist and working somewhere like The New Yorker. Book Andy is from Avon, Connecticut, and smokes incessantly; Movie Andy is given neither a specific hometown nor any particular vices.
Key differences:
Obviously, film being a visual medium, Andy’s glow-up feels a lot more dramatic in the movie version of The Devil Wears Prada than in the book, where her first Runway-appropriate outfit is described as a “tweedy Prada skirt, black Prada turtleneck, and midcalf-length Prada boots,” handed to her one night by a friendly fashion assistant named Jeffy. In the film, the look is a double-breasted black blazer with over-the-knee leather boots, both from Chanel.
In terms of attitude, Andy’s simmering rage at Miranda is much more present—and more fixed—on the page than on the screen. Indeed, by humanizing Miranda (more on that later), the film ends up creating a different Andy, too.
Who’s the better Andy?
This is a tough one, but I’m going to have to give the competitive advantage to Anne Hathaway’s filmic interpretation. Sure, she could have stood to learn a few things about fashion herself instead of making her ineptitude everyone else’s problem, but she’s much less of a brat about her job, has far less complicated relationships with her friends and boyfriend (more on them later), and parts ways with Miranda far more peaceably. (While Movie Andy simply doesn’t follow Miranda into a show, dropping her cellphone into a Parisian fountain when her boss calls, Book Andy leaves her post with a “Fuck you, Miranda. Fuck you.”)
