The Devil Wears Prada is a 2006 American comedy-drama film directed by David Frankel and produced by Wendy Finerman. The screenplay, written by Aline Brosh McKenna, is based on the 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger. The film stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt. It follows Andy Sachs (Hathaway), an aspiring journalist who gets a job at a fashion magazine but finds herself at the mercy of her demanding editor, Miranda Priestly (Streep).
20th Century Fox bought the rights to a film adaptation of Weisberger's novel in 2003, before it was completed, but the project was not greenlit until Streep was cast. Principal photography lasted 57 days across September to December 2005, primarily taking place in New York City. Additional filming took place in Paris.
The Devil Wears Prada premiered at the LA Film Festival on June 22, 2006, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 30. It received positive reviews, particularly for Streep's performance; she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and was nominated as Best Lead Actress for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, SAG, and Critics' Choice. The film grossed $327 million worldwide against a budget of $35–41 million. A sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2, was released in May 2026.
Most designers and other fashion figures avoided appearing as themselves, reportedly for fear of displeasing the American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who is widely believed to have been the inspiration for the character of Miranda Priestly. However, Wintour stated she enjoyed the film and Streep's performance in particular.
Plot
Aspiring journalist Andrea "Andy" Sachs has recently graduated from Northwestern University. Despite her lack of knowledge of the fashion industry, she is hired as a junior personal assistant to Miranda Priestly, the cruel editor-in-chief of Runway magazine in New York City. Andy resolves to tolerate Miranda's abusive treatment until she can use her connections from Runway to find a journalism-focused job.
Andy fits in poorly with her superficial, fashion-forward co-workers, particularly Miranda's British senior assistant, Emily Charlton, and struggles to meet Miranda's irrational demands. After she fails to arrange for Miranda to be flown back from Miami during a hurricane, she is berated. She then approaches Runways art director Nigel for advice, and he helps her select stylish clothes to fit the extremely fashion-conscious workplace.
Noticing Andy's increased commitment to the job, Miranda delegates more important tasks to her. Andy soon outperforms Emily, who yearns to attend Paris Fashion Week as Miranda's assistant. In preparation for the event, Emily follows extreme diets that endanger her health.
When Emily arrives to work sick and forgets the names of important guests at a charity benefit, Andy steps in to save Miranda from embarrassment. Miranda subsequently selects Andy to accompany her to Paris Fashion Week. Emily is horrified that Andy accepted Miranda's offer. After Andy snaps at her boyfriend Nate, he breaks up with her, disappointed that she has become one of the shallow, egotistical women she once ridiculed.
In Paris, Andy learns that Miranda's husband has filed for divorce. Later that night, Nigel tells Andy that he has accepted a job as creative director for rising designer James Holt. Andy spends the night with an attractive writer, Christian Thompson, who tells her that Jacqueline Follet (Miranda's counterpart as editor-in-chief at French Runway) is being prepared to replace Miranda. Andy attempts to warn Miranda, who dismisses her.
At a luncheon, Miranda announces Jacqueline as Holt's new creative director and later reveals that she already knew of the scheme to replace her and sacrificed Nigel's ambitions to preserve her own job. Andy is repulsed by Miranda's betrayal of her friend, but Miranda points out that Andy did the same thing to Emily. Afraid to become the type of person Miranda is, Andy storms off. When Miranda tries calling her, Andy tosses her phone into the Fontaines de la Concorde.
Back in New York, Andy meets up with Nate, who tells her he has a new job as a sous-chef in Boston, and they agree to keep in touch. The same day, Andy has an interview at the New York Mirror newspaper. The editor recounts that when he called Runway for a reference, Miranda told him that Andy was the biggest disappointment she had ever had as an assistant and that he would be an idiot not to hire her.
After getting the job, Andy calls Emily and offers her the clothes she obtained in Paris. While walking past the Runway office building, Andy sees Miranda and waves at her. Miranda does not acknowledge her but smiles to herself once seated in her car.
Cast
Heidi Klum, Valentino Garavani, and Bridget Hall cameo as themselves. Robert Verdi appears as a fashion journalist in Paris who interviews Miranda, while uncredited appearances include Giancarlo Giammetti, original novel author Lauren Weisberger as the twins' nanny, and Nigel Barker.
Production Fox bought the rights to Weisberger's novel before the book's prose was finished. Carla Hacken, then the studio's executive vice president, had only seen the first hundred pages of the manuscript and an outline for the rest of the plot. Director David Frankel and producer Wendy Finerman had read The Devil Wears Prada in book proposal form. Frankel recalls the experience as having high stakes, since it was the biggest project they had yet attempted, with barely adequate resources.
Weisberger is believed to have based Miranda on Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, for whom she herself had once worked as a personal assistant. Fear of what Wintour might do in retribution for any visible cooperation with the production posed obstacles in the fashion industry and the film industry.
Writing When the book became a bestseller, elements of the plot were incorporated into the screenplay. Most took their inspiration from the 2001 Ben Stiller film Zoolander, satirizing the fashion industry. David Frankel was hired as director despite his limited experience, having only made one feature, Miami Rhapsody, and episodes of Sex and the City and Entourage. He cited Unzipped, the 1995 documentary about designer Isaac Mizrahi, as his model for the film's attitude towards fashion, both silly and serious.
At a meeting with Finerman, Frankel said he thought the story unnecessarily punished Miranda. He prepared to move on and consider more scripts. Two days later, his manager persuaded him to reconsider and look for something he liked that he could shape the film into. He took the job, giving Finerman extensive notes on the script and laying out a detailed vision for the film.
Four screenwriters worked on the property. Peter Hedges wrote the first draft, another writer passed. Paul Rudnick did some work on Miranda's scenes, followed by a Don Roos rewrite. Aline Brosh McKenna, who related her own youthful experiences to the story, produced a draft that struck a balance for Finerman and Frankel, whose notes were incorporated into a final version, rearranging the plot significantly, and focusing the story on the conflict between Andy and Miranda. McKenna toned down Miranda's meanness at Finerman and Frankel's request, only to restore it for Streep. She cited Don Rickles as her main influence for the insults. McKenna consulted with fashion acquaintances to make her screenplay more realistic, made difficult since they did not want to offend Wintour. Weisberger stated that McKenna's draft took it away from the "typical chick flick" direction it was going in.
Cerulean sweater speech
In the "cerulean speech", Miranda links the designer fashion in Runways pages and Andy's cerulean blue sweater, criticizing Andy's snobbishness about fashion. Streep said that the scene was about marketing and business. McKenna recalls that she expanded it to suit Streep and Frankel. The speech became one of the film's most memorable moments. Morwenna Ferrier, in The Guardian, agreed that fashion mattered, even to people who claim to be "oblivious to trends". Mic wrote that the speech functioned as a critique of cultural appropriation.
"Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking!" Miranda's sarcastic response to Jocelyn's story suggestion for the floral spring prints has been considered the film's best line. McKenna wrote the scene with Streep in mind. It was written "florals." and "spring." Streep spoke them with a slight rising intonation, as if they ended in question marks. McKenna sees Streep's way of saying "florals" has the same resonance for her as the earlier line "By all means move at a glacial pace; you know that thrills me." "It just punches you in the face ever so lightly, slowly ruining your self-esteem."
Casting Michelle Pfeiffer, Glenn Close, and Catherine Zeta-Jones were considered for the role of Miranda. Streep was almost passed over because people thought she was not funny. Her casting helped offset the difficulties Wintour's resistance to the film had created. Streep felt the pay she was initially offered for the role was too low. The producers doubled it to around $4 million, and she signed on, allowing Fox to greenlight the film.
For Andy, Fox wanted a young A-list actress, and felt Rachel McAdams, then coming off successes in Mean Girls and The Notebook, would help the film's commercial prospects. McAdams turned down several offers to play Andy. Kate Hudson was offered the role but declined due to scheduling conflicts with You, Me and Dupree. Kirsten Dunst, Natalie Portman, and Scarlett Johansson were considered. Anne Hathaway actively sought the part, tracing "Hire me" in the sand of the zen garden on Hacken's desk when she talked about the project with the executive. While Frankel liked her enough not to require her to audition, she thought she was not the studio's first choice and he would have to be patient.
Over 100 actresses were considered for Emily before a casting agent taped Emily Blunt reading some of the lines elsewhere on the Fox lot after her audition for Eragon. She read them in her own British accent which interested Frankel as he liked her sense of humor. After the makers of Eragon cast Sienna Guillory, Frankel called Blunt, saying that while he would have cast her just from the tape, the studio wanted to see another audition with her dressed more in character. She insisted on continuing to play the character as British.
Tucci agreed to play Nigel only three days before shooting started. The filmmakers had auditioned Barney's creative director Simon Doonan and E!'s Robert Verdi, both openly gay men highly visible as media fashion commentators. The BBC's Graham Norton also auditioned,Stanley Tucci on Graham Norton, " in addition to 150 other actors. Verdi said there was no intention to hire him and the producers had just used him and Doonan to give whoever they ultimately did cast some filmed research to use in playing a gay character; Tucci says he was unaware of this. He based the character on various people he was acquainted with, insisting on the glasses he ultimately wore.
Daniel Sunjata had read unenthusiastically for Tucci's part, but then read the Holt part and asked if he could audition for it. Simon Baker auditioned by sending a video of himself, wearing the same self-designed green jacket he has on when he and Andy meet for the first time. Colleen and Suzanne Dengel, who played Miranda's daughters, were cast two weeks after auditioning for Frankel and Finerman.