When Anne Hathaway announced on Instagram that she and her husband were expecting their third child, the internet erupted with joy for the couple. Yet while millions of people know Anne’s filmography inside and out — from ‘The Princess Diaries’ to ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ to ‘Les Misérables,’ far fewer could tell you much about the man who stands beside her.According to Cosmopolitan, Adam Shulman, 45, is not someone who courts the spotlight. Yet over the past decade and a half, he has quietly emerged as a multifaceted creative force in his own right, balancing roles as an actor, film producer and jewellery designer while maintaining an impressively private relationship with one of entertainment’s biggest names.
Adam Shulman ‘s New York roots and early career path
Like Anne, Shulman’s roots run deep in New York City. After studying theatre at Brown University and honing his craft at NYU’s Tisch School summer program, he began his career with small television roles and film work. But rather than chase the traditional acting path that might have defined his career, Shulman chose a different trajectory, one that would ultimately align beautifully with his eventual partnership with Hathaway.
Anne Hathaway and Adam Shulman’s love story
Their love story is almost cinematic in its timing. In the summer of 2008, Anne was navigating one of the most publicised heartbreaks of her life following her then-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri’s arrest on fraud charges. It was during this vulnerable period that she met Shulman through mutual friends at the Palm Springs Film Festival. Despite the chaos surrounding her, Anne felt something undeniable click into place.Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar UK, Anne reflected on the moment: “I knew from the second I met him that he was the love of my life. I also knew that I couldn’t have met him at a worse time.” Yet she chose to leap, and what began as a chance encounter at a film festival would become the foundation of a lasting partnership.
Adam Shulman and Anne Hathaway’s collaboration as film producers
After marrying in 2012 in the dramatic setting of Big Sur, California, Shulman and Hathaway began collaborating professionally. In 2014, they produced ‘Song One’ together, an indie drama in which Anne also starred. Rather than creating the tensions that often plague couples working together, the experience deepened their mutual respect. Speaking to People magazine, Anne praised his instincts as a producer, revealing that she learned from him during the process — a testament to his eye for storytelling and his ability to balance creative vision with partnership.
Anne Hathaway has often spoken about the positive impact husband Adam Shulman has had on her life and career.Image credit: (Anne Hathaway Instagram)
Adam Shulman’s journey into jewellery design and the Lightkeeper pendant
Perhaps most unexpectedly, Shulman found his true creative calling not on film sets but in jewellery design. His path to this field began serendipitously when he befriended designer Heidi Nahser Fink on the set of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Recognising his visual sensibility and creative potential, Fink encouraged him to pursue jewellery design. In 2011, the two co-founded a jewellery company named after Shulman’s maternal grandfather, a jeweller himself.The company’s signature piece, the Lightkeeper pendant, emerged from an intimate moment between Shulman and Hathaway. While she filmed in London and he worked in theatre in New York, she confided that she missed having “the lights in her life.” In an interview with a jewellery publication, Adam explained the inspiration: “When Annie was on a long shoot in London, and I was doing theatre work in New York, she told me, ‘I don’t feel like I have the lights in my life,’ and so the company’s trademark piece, called the Lightkeeper, was created.“When she began wearing it publicly, demand for the piece exploded, and the jewellery venture officially took off. Shulman’s design talents extended to one of the most important pieces of jewellery in Hathaway’s life — her engagement ring. A stunning 6-carat emerald-cut diamond created in collaboration with a diamond jeweller, the ring reflects Shulman’s deep understanding of what his wife loves and values.
Adam Shulman and Anne Hathaway’s matching tattoos
What makes Shulman and Hathaway’s relationship remarkable is their ability to maintain genuine intimacy in an industry obsessed with exposure. They’ve chosen to keep their romance largely private. The couple’s matching “M” tattoos, which Anne revealed during an appearance on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’, symbolise their philosophy. “The idea is that individually we’re whole, but together we’re more,” Anne explained. “I don’t expect him to complete me, and he doesn’t expect me to complete him. I’m my own person. He’s his own person, and we choose to be together because we believe we make each other better.”
Anne Hathaway’s emotional road to motherhood
Anne’s path to becoming a mother of three wasn’t a straight or easy one. In 2015, while starring in a six-week off-Broadway run of the one-woman show “Grounded” — a role that required her to act out giving birth on stage every single night- Anne quietly went through a miscarriage. She later opened up about how surreal and painful that experience was, telling Vanity Fair, “The first time it didn’t work out for me. I was doing a play, and I had to give birth onstage every night... It was too much to keep it in when I was onstage pretending everything was fine. I had to keep it real otherwise.”
The Oscar-winning actress and Adam Shulman have been married since 2012 and are already parents to sons Jonathan and Jack.Image credit: (Anne Hathaway Instagram)
She and Shulman went on to welcome their first son, Jonathan, in March 2016 — but conceiving him hadn’t come easily either, with Anne later revealing she’d struggled with infertility before that pregnancy too.When she announced her second pregnancy in July 2019, Anne chose honesty over a picture-perfect moment. Sharing a mirror selfie of her baby bump on Instagram, she captioned it, “It’s not for a movie…#2,” before adding a heartfelt note: “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.” She later told Vanity Fair that posting something “all the way happy” would have felt disingenuous, given how nuanced and difficult the journey to motherhood had actually been for her. Their second son, Jack, arrived later that year.Reflecting on why she chose to speak so openly, Anne explained that she didn’t want anyone else going through fertility struggles to feel isolated the way she once had. “I wasn’t going to feel ashamed of something that seemed to me statistically to actually be quite normal,” she said, noting how surprised she’d been to learn how many of her own friends had quietly gone through the same thing.
Adam Shulman as a father, and the family’s future as they await baby no. 3
Since welcoming Jonathan in 2016 and Jack in 2019, Shulman has embraced fatherhood with the same quiet thoughtfulness he brings to his other endeavours. The couple, who tied the knot in 2012, have spent years deliberately keeping their sons out of the spotlight. Now, after two pregnancies that came with real heartbreak along the way, they’re preparing to welcome their third child and become a family of five.
