“They’re best friends,” Tucci told E! News. “To have it sort of cross over with work was just, like, weird.”

As for Streep, she was just excited to bond with the cast after leaning fully into her role as ruthless fashion editor Miranda Priestly the first go-round. 

At the initial table read, she barely spoke above a whisper, Tracie Thoms, who played Lily, the loyal, tell-it-like-it-is best friend to Hathaway’s aspiring editor Andy Sachs, recounted to E! News back in 2021, forcing everyone to lean in to catch her every word. 

“She didn’t even look at Anne, except for when she talked about her sweater: ‘And then you got that hideous sweater from a Casual Corner’ or whatever,” Thoms added. “And I could feel Anne next to me just, like, wilt in her soul.”

Though Streep “loves the hang,” Hathaway revealed to E! News at the New York premiere April 20, she felt like the cast “would just be a little sharper, stand a little taller” if they didn’t feel “so comfortable around her.”

But having “made a huge sacrifice” for the success of the first flick, noted Hathaway, she decided, that’s all, telling the cast, “You guys can do it yourselves.”