The Idea of You star Anne Hathaway recalled having to make out with 10 different guys during “gross” chemistry tests in the early 2000s.
In a new interview with V Magazine, the Oscar winner reflected on her early days in the business and how she felt the need to go along with questionable practices if she wanted to work.
“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,” Hathaway, 41, said, reports Page Six.
“I was told, ‘We have 10 guys coming today and you’re cast. Aren’t you excited to make out with all of them?’” she recalled. “And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ because I wasn’t excited. I thought it sounded gross.”
Hatchway said she was “terribly aware how easy it was to lose everything by being labelled ‘difficult’” despite being “so young.”
“So I just pretended I was excited and got on with it,” she continued.
The Princess Diaries star, who didn’t cite any movies by name, noted that that was just how things worked back then.
“It wasn’t a power play, no one was trying to be awful or hurt me,” she said. “It was just a very different time and now we know better.”
Fast forward a few decades and now Hathaway is starring and producing her new film, The Idea of You — meaning she had a say in how the casting process worked.
In the film, Hathaway plays a single mother in her 40s who falls in love with a much younger male singer. However, the Devil Wears Prada star said she didn’t need to kiss a bunch of 20-something-year-old men to find her perfect co-star.
Instead of swapping spit, the actress asked each auditioning actor to sing a song they felt the characters “would love.”
“[A song] that they would put on to get my character to dance, and then we’d do a short little improv,” she explained. “I was sitting in a chair like we had come in from dinner or a walk or something, we pressed play, and we just started dancing together.”
Ultimately, Nicholas Galitzine landed the role after choosing a song by The Alabama Shakes that immediately got Hathaway up and dancing.
“We had met a number of young men already, but I remember laughing when Nick walked in because he was so ridiculously perfect for the part,” she recalled. “I just thought, he is it,”
The trailer for the upcoming movie, based on the best-selling book by Robinne Lee, came out last month and quickly became a hot topic of conversation.
While some viewers were disturbed by the fake couple’s 14-year age gap, others — including Whoopi Goldberg — were all for it.
On an episode of The View, Goldberg called out people who labelled Hathaway’s character “disgusting,” arguing that the storyline is nothing “new” and we see men dating much younger women all the time.
“What is the problem?! If you don’t wanna see the movie, don’t see the movie! Stop bitching about it!” Goldberg said.
This article originally appeared in Page Six and was reproduced with permission.
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