Anne Hathaway on Finding Out People Hate Her: 'Even Now I Can Feel the Shame'

Something tells us a lot of "Hathahaters" might feel a little bit guilty reading this one.

It's no secret that Anne Hathaway wasn't exactly the most liked during the 2013 awards season as she racked up accolades for her portrayal of Fantine in Les Miserables, and in a new interview with Harper's Bazaar, she recalls the moment she Googled herself and found an article titled "Why Does Everyone Hate Anne Hathaway?"

"Punched in the gut," she remembers about the moment, which happened while she had some friends over to help her brainstorm for a Funny or Die video. "Shocked and slapped and embarrassed. Even now I can feel the shame."

VIDEO: Anne Hathaway Addresses All Her Haters

Even directors didn't want anything to do with her. "I had directors say to me, 'I think you're great. You're perfect for this role, but I don't know how audiences will accept you because of all this stuff, this baggage,'" she remembers after the Oscar win.

But Anne, 31, refuses to play the victim.

"What are we supposed to do -- pretend like it didn't happen?," she says about the brutal time for her public image. "People treated me a certain way. But I've grown from it. This whole thing has made me a way more compassionate and loving person. And I don't feel sorry for myself."

In fact, Anne reveals a more self-assured side of herself in the new interview, and talks about being more "daring" in both her personal life (she was the one to make the first move on her now-husband Adam Schulman) and her career -- including rebuffing the notion that she isn't "sexy."

"A lot of people have told me, 'You're not this and so can't play that,' and I can't tell you the amount of times I've been told I'm not sexy," she admits. "I just go: 'I'm a lot of things. Just because I don't wear my sexiness overtly doesn't mean that I can't become that girl for a role. That's what I do; I become things. Use your imagination, buddy.'"

NEWS: Anne Hathaway -- The Fame Thing 'F*cked Me Up'

And who's the most "daring man" she knows?

Her Interstellar co-star Matthew McConaughey, 44.

"He never judged himself along the way, and it's all come together for him so wholly and deeply," she praises the Oscar-winning actor. "He is totally himself."

Check out the two in the trailer for Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated -- and mysterious -- film below.