Anne Hathaway had a miscarriage while acting in a play where she gave 'birth onstage every night'

Anne Hathaway has shared that she suffered a miscarriage in 2015, while acting in a play where she had “to give birth onstage every night.”

“The first time it didn’t work out for me. I was doing a play and I had to give birth onstage every night,” the Princess Diaries star said in an interview with Vanity Fair.

Her miscarriage occurred during a six-week run of the one-woman off-Broadway show “Grounded,” Vanity Fair reported on Monday.

Hathaway said when her friends visited her backstage after performances, she would let out her emotions, saying “it was too much to keep it in when I was onstage, pretending everything was fine.”

“So when it did go well for me, having been on the other side of it - where you have to have the grace to be happy for someone - I wanted to let my sisters know, ‘You don’t have to always be graceful. I see you and I’ve been you,’” she continued, welling up.

“It’s really hard to want something so much and to wonder if you’re doing something wrong,” the now-mum-of-two added.

The 41-year-old, who said she has become gentler since becoming a mother, has two children with husband and fellow actor Adam Shulman.

When announcing her pregnancy with her second child in 2019, she wrote in an Instagram post, “It’s not for a movie…#2,” .

The “Les Misérables” star added: “All kidding aside, for everyone going through infertility and conception hell, please know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies. Sending you extra love.”

Referring to that moment during her Variety Fair interview, Hathaway said, “Given the pain I felt while trying to get pregnant… it would’ve felt disingenuous to post something all the way happy when I know the story is much more nuanced than that for everyone.”

“I wasn’t going to feel ashamed of something that seemed to me statistically to actually be quite normal,” she added.

Hathaway said she was shocked to learn that many of her friends had gone through similar experiences, CNN reports.

“Why are we feeling so unnecessarily isolated? That’s where we take on damage. So I decided that I was going to talk about it,” she said.

"The thing that broke my heart, blew my mind, and gave me hope was that for three years after, almost daily, a woman came up to me in tears and I would just hold her, because she was carrying this [pain] around and suddenly it wasn’t all hers anymore.”

It's is thought around one in eight known pregnancies will end in miscarriage, the NHS says.

A GP can give support and advice on miscarriages.

The following organisations are recommended by the NHS to also help: The Miscarriage Association is a charity that offers support to people who have lost a baby. They have a helpline (01924 200 799) and an email address (info@miscarriageassociation.org.uk) and can put you in touch with a support volunteer.

Cruse Bereavement Care helps people understand their grief and cope with their loss. They have a helpline (0808 808 1677) and a network of local branches where you can find support.

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