The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrives in theaters May 1 with its original core cast intact — Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci — but without Adrian Grenier, whose absence as Andy Sachs’s ex-boyfriend Nate has drawn more attention than almost anyone expected. Now director David Frankel has broken his silence on why Grenier never made it into the sequel.
Frankel told Entertainment Weekly that he did consider slipping Grenier into a cameo role, but the production schedule ultimately made it impossible. “I had an idea about sneaking him into a cameo, and in the end, it was just too late in our production schedule to make it happen,” Frankel said, adding that the film wrapped less than a month before its release date, leaving no room to accommodate additional cast.
The admission comes after months of public speculation. Grenier had already described not receiving a call to return as a “disappointment,” saying he suspected the character’s widespread unpopularity with audiences — Nate was frequently criticized by fans for his condescending attitude toward Andy’s ambitions — may have contributed to the decision. Rather than dwell on it, Grenier leaned into the irony: he appeared in a Starbucks advertisement riffing on his exclusion, declaring “Let’s leave Nate in 2006 and keep this good energy going.” Frankel praised the move, calling it “really funny and so self-effacing.”
When pressed on what Nate would have done in the sequel, Frankel declined to elaborate but said he was “thrilled” Grenier had handled the situation with humor and humility.
The Grenier story is one of several controversies swirling around the sequel before it even opens. A promotional clip released by 20th Century Studios on April 16 — showing Hathaway’s Andy meeting her new assistant Jin Chao, played by Chinese-American actress Helen J. Shen — accumulated tens of millions of views but ignited fierce backlash across Asia, with users in Japan, South Korea, China, and Hong Kong accusing the character of trafficking in racial stereotypes.
Critics pointed to the character’s name, thick-framed glasses, and anxious recitation of academic credentials — Yale, a 3.86 GPA — as reductive shorthand. The hashtag #BoycottTheDevilWearsPrada2 began trending in several Asian markets, with coverage appearing in South Korean, Japanese, and Hong Kong media outlets. As of the film’s release week, neither the studio nor its filmmakers had issued any public response.
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