LOS ANGELES-In the new offbeat thriller Colossal, Anne Hathaway plays Gloria, an alcoholic who discovers that her mental breakdown is somehow connected to a giant monster that’s terrorising South Korea. It’s a very different kind of role for the actress, and she rose to the challenge. “I felt that it was a movie that dealt with addiction in such an intimate way,” she says, “in a way that we’re not used to seeing it.

It’s a really honest and fantastically unshowy film, despite it being searing. And it’s not afraid to be funny, because my experience with addiction is that mixed in with all that tragedy are some of the funniest stories you’ll ever hear. One of the things I love about Colossal is that it allowed for Gloria to be contradictory.” Indeed, the movie has been described as a sci-fi, drama, allegory, horror and comedy.

“This movie doesn’t have a clear genre,” Hathaway says.