Anne Hathaway has said that the criticism she experienced after winning an Oscar was a “really good thing.”

Following her role as Fantine in Tom Hooper’s 2012 musical, the actress, now 38 years old, won the Academy Award for best supporting actress.

Her awards season success was met with a barrage of online criticism, and in a 2014 interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Hathaway said that she even googled herself after the Oscars and found an article headlined “Why does everyone hate Anne Hathaway?”

With eight years of development behind her since Oscar night, Hathaway told The Sun this month that she prefers to focus on the benefits that have resulted from being the target of intense internet vitriol. The actress claimed that the criticism prompted her to develop self-confidence that she would not have had otherwise.

“I really don’t want to dredge up the past but I did have my monster out there, I did have the internet turn on me and hate me and it was like a whole big thing,” she told The Sun on Saturday. “And it was a really good thing for me personally.”

Anne Hathaway accepting an award at the 2013 Oscars. Christopher Polk / Getty Images

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“You can be incredibly empowered because of those things. So I guess what I’d say is when the bad shit happens, don’t fear it — just go with it, flow with it.”

Despite the fact that she went away from the evening with a major prize, the “Devil Wears Prada” star admitted she didn’t feel the way she had planned.

“You’re supposed to be happy. I didn’t feel that way,” she explained, adding, “I felt wrong that I was standing there in a gown that cost more than some people are going to see in their lifetime, and winning an award for portraying pain that still felt very much a part of our collective experience as human beings.”

“I tried to pretend that I was happy and I got called out on it, big time,” she said.

In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar in 2014, Hathaway described the hostility she received following the Oscars as feeling like she had been “punched in the gut.” The actress went on to say that the hostility left her “shocked” and “embarrassed” at the time, adding, “Even now, I can feel the shame.”

“People treated me a certain way. But I’ve grown from it,” Hathaway stated at the time. “This whole thing has made me a way more compassionate and loving person. And I don’t feel sorry for myself.”

Hathaway has upcoming parts in the Warner Bros. Sesame Street film and the Armageddon Time thriller starring Robert De Niro from the 1980s.

Hathaway’s most recent HBO Max streaming credits include “The Witches,” which launched in October, and “Locked Down,” which premiered this month and was shot in 2020 under rigorous pandemic safety restrictions.