Although The Devil Wears Prada 2 boasts a number of original cast members returning to the world of fashion publishing — Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt, to name a few — one familiar face did not make it into the sequel. Adrian Grenier will not be reprising his role as Nate, the boyfriend of Hathaway’s Andy Sachs.
Director David Frankel, who helmed both the 2006 original and this follow-up, spoke in an interview with Entertainment Weekly about how he’d initially wanted to include Grenier in the film. “I had an idea about sneaking him into a cameo,” said Frankel, “and, in the end, it was just too late in our production schedule to make it happen.” The director also noted that the film was completed less than one month before its planned release date, making it even more difficult to include Grenier for a quick scene.
For his part, Grenier has voiced his disappointment about not participating in the second film. “We’re all fans of the movie, whether or not we’re in it,” he told Page Six. “Obviously, it was a disappointment that I didn’t get the call to be in the sequel, but I also understand that there’s some backlash with Nate, the character, so that might have something to do with it.”
That “backlash” Grenier is referring to is the vocal group of The Devil Wears Prada fans who argue that Nate was the real villain of the film, particularly because he was so unsupportive of Andy’s newfound career at Runway. “All those memes that came out were shocking to me,” Grenier told Entertainment Weekly. “It hadn’t occurred to me until I started to really think about it, and perhaps it was because I was as immature as Nate was at the time, and in many ways he’s very selfish and self-involved…”
Despite not making it into the sequel, Grenier is still part of The Devil Wears Prada canon… sort of. Recently, the actor starred in a Starbucks commercial that pokes fun at his absence in The Devil Wears Prada 2.
“So a toast to Nate,” said Grenier in the ad. “He made a mean sandwich. He loved his girlfriend, to a point. He wasn’t perfect. So let’s leave Nate in 2006 and keep this good energy going.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 hits Philippines cinemas on April 29.
