Anne Hathaway Reflects on 'Gross' Audition Where She Had to Kiss 10 Men

The outrageous audition experience left the actress with a bad taste in her mouth.

April 23, 2024

Anne Hathaway once had to endure a weird audition experience to get cast in a major film.

To promote her upcoming romantic comedy, The Idea of You, the new V Magazine cover star spoke about the "gross" audition, where she had to kiss ten actors. Apparently, at the time, it was "normal" for actors to be asked to canoodle during chemistry tests.

"I was told, ‘We have ten guys coming today and you’re cast. Aren’t you excited to make out with all of them?’" Hathaway recalled. "And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ because I wasn’t excited. I thought it sounded gross."

She continued, "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."

Although Hathway didn't specify what film the audition for, she's come a long way. As a producer on The Idea of You, Hathaway took a more wholesome chemistry test approach with actors, ultimately landing on co-star Nicholas Galitzine.

“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," she told V Magazine. "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."