The Devil Wears Prada screenwriter explains what the characters would be doing now, in 2021
Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. (20th Century Fox)
Have you ever wondered where all the characters from The Devil Wears Prada ended up after the credits rolled?
You don’t have to answer that question. We all know that, at some point, you’ve knocked back the rest of a glass of wine while watching the film’s epic closing scene and held back tears as you remembered that there is, as of yet, no sequel.
Well, we don’t have a sequel just yet – but the The Devil Wears Prada screenwriter Aline Brosh-McKenna has helpfully offered her thoughts on where the film’s characters are today.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly to mark the film’s 15-year anniversary, Brosh-McKenna dished all the details on what happened next for Andy, Nate, Miranda, Emily, Doug, Lily and the poor, tortured soul that is Nigel.
Anne Hathaway’s character Andy went on to have a successful career in journalism, Brosh-McKenna explained.
“Andy has a podcast on Slate or works for Axios,” she said. “She definitely has a Twitter that’s news, and she feels strongly about climate change. She had a pink pussycat hat in 2016, and went to the Women’s March!”
Brosh-McKenna’s update on Nate (played by Adrian Grenier) was less detailed, but that’s OK because he was the real villain all along and all right-thinking people loathe him.
Today, Nate is still working “in various restaurants and kitchens” and is probably “dating a real cool chef who has a pierced nose and cool clothes that she bought at a thrift store”.
Thankfully, Brosh-McKenna doesn’t think Andy and Nate would ever have gotten back together. In fact, she thinks they probably haven’t seen each other in 10 years and will one day bump into each other at a college reunion.
Miranda Priestly’s dedicated assistant Emily (played spectacularly by Emily Blunt) went on to have a truly fabulous life, Brosh-McKenna said.
“She has done something fantastic, maybe married some sort of minor member of the Scandinavian Royal Family and lives somewhere incredible and still wears avant-garde clothes and is in the Denmark tabloids wearing some fabulous asymmetric taffeta thing.”
As for Doug (played by Rich Sommer), one of Andy’s awful friends, he’s an “outdoorsy guy” in 2021 and “wears Patagonia. He has quit his job but still reads Runway. Meanwhile, Lily (Tracie Thomas) – Andy’s other unsupportive friend – has become “super successful” in the art world and probably owns her own gallery.
Not much has changed for either Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) or Nigel (Stanley Tucci) – and we couldn’t see it any other way.
“Miranda still has her fingernails into the difficult climbing wall that is fashion and media and has probably only expanded her range,” Brosh-McKenna said.
“Nigel is still by her side. I don’t think he ever gets out. It’s the Faust story, and he’s in hell. He’s still ferrying people back and forth across the River Styx, because he doesn’t have a choice.”
Meanwhile, Lauren Weisberger, who wrote the book the film was based on, told Entertainment Weekly that there has been talk of a potential television series sequel to The Devil Wears Prada – so if we’re lucky, we might one day get to see all of the characters’ futures play out on the screen.
