Anne Hathaway reflects on ‘gross’ movie audition where she was made to kiss 10 men
We've all kissed a few frogs in our time, but most of us haven't had to smooch 10 random men in succession on a film set while movie execs decide whether you have a spark with them or not.
Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, has had to do exactly that - and she doesn't recall those days in Hollywood fondly.
The actress, 41, has had more high-profile roles than I've had hot dinners, so she certainly knows her way around a movie set and has more than a good idea about what making a film in the noughties was like.
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Times have changed, as have workplace dynamics in the entertainment world since the Me Too movement.
But this wasn't the case when Hathaway was still trying to make a name for herself before she landed her breakout role in The Princess Diaries in 2001.
She revealed that she had an extremely 'gross' experience on the sent of a movie - which she did not name - in the early 2000s, which was a stark contrast to how things went down while shooting her upcoming romcom The Idea Of You.
The Bride Wars star features alongside Brit actor Nicholas Galitzine, 29, in the flick which follows the love story which 40-year-old single mum Solène Marchand embarks on after taking her teenage daughter to Coachella.
As well as enjoying some mum and daughter bonding, she ends up striking up a romance with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell, the lead singer of a famous boy band named August Moon.
Hathaway explained that the team behind The Idea Of You, which is set to be released on Amazon Prime on 2 May, came up with an interesting chemistry test to work out which actor was the perfect partner for her.
She told V Magazine: "We asked each of the actors coming in to choose a song that they felt their character would love, that they would put on to get my character to dance, and then we’d do a short little improv."
Luckily, it turns out that Galitzine has good music taste in Hathaway's eyes, as she said his audition was 'just easy' after he selected a song by the US rock band, Alabama Shakes.
The Witches star continued: "I heard Brittany’s [the lead singer of Alabama Shakes] voice and I just started smiling.
"And he saw me smile, so he relaxed, and we just started dancing.
"Nobody was showing off. Nobody was trying to get the gig. We were just in a space dancing. I looked over and Michael Showalter, our director, was beaming. Spark!"
But back in the day, this wasn't the kind of chemistry test which was used to find a believable couple to star on screen.
Hathaway revealed that it was standard for actors to be asked to lock lips with multiple randomers on a film set.
Recalling her own experience, the mum-of-two said: "Back in the 2000s – and this did happen to me – it was considered normal to ask an actor to make out with other actors to test for chemistry, which is actually the worst way to do it.
"I was told, ‘We have 10 guys coming today and you’re cast. Aren’t you excited to make out with all of them?’
"And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ because I wasn’t excited. I thought it sounded gross.
"And I was so young and terribly aware how easy it was to lose everything by being labeled ‘difficult’, so I just pretended I was excited and got on with it. It wasn’t a power play, no one was trying to be awful or hurt me.
"It was just a very different time and now we know better."
You can say that again.
Topics: Film, Celebrity, Sex and Relationships, Weird, TV and Film
Olivia Burke