The Hustle is an outsized passion project for Rebel Wilson, a law graduate turned high-powered actress, now breaking out as a Hollywood producer. She pitched the film to producer Roger Birnbaum and production company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as an update of the 1988 slapstick comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, this time with a chalk-and-cheese match of two female con artists on the French Riviera: high-class, millionaire conwoman Josephine Chesterfield (Anne Hathaway) and low-rent, backpacking hustler Penny Rust (Wilson). To play Rust, Wilson didn't need to dig much further than her long-held admiration of Hathaway. "Josephine is like 40 times richer than Penny when we meet her," says Wilson. "And Penny's like, 'How can I be her?'