Anne Hathaway recently shed light on a rather unusual audition process from the 2000s.
In a recent interview with V Magazine, The Devil Wears Prada star shared a surprising encounter where she had to kiss 10 men in one day as part of a “chemistry testing” session.
Hathaway 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 ten guys coming today and you're cast. Aren't you excited to make out with all of them?'
Hathaway expressed feeling uncomfortable and even grossed out by the experience, despite having to put on a facade of excitement.
She continued, “And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?' because I wasn't excited. I thought it sounded gross. 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.”
Hathaway's latest film The Idea of You explores the dynamic between a single mother and a boy band star played by Nicholas Galitzine.
She also shared that she now approaches chemistry tests in a different manner.
“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. 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.”
Donna Morong, casting director for The Princess Diaries, had this to say in a statement to LA Times:
“I certainly was not a part of any audition that required her to make out, or anyone else to, and it was not something done at Disney and Touchstone for the 15 years I was a casting executive in feature films, as far as I am aware of,”
“I have no reason to believe that Anne Hathaway would lie about experiencing that in other casting offices but it seems like a crazy way to measure whether two people have ‘chemistry,' completely ineffective and I would agree, ‘gross,'”
Morong continued. “As Anne said in her article in ‘V,' she loved working with Garry Marshall and never referenced making out with multiple actors during the casting of ‘Princess Diaries.'”
Linda Lamontagne, who cast Hathaway in the show Get Real, said to TMZ: “I've worked in casting since Capital News in 1988 and, in all honesty, never had to have actors make out with any other actor for any auditions nor chemistry tests.”
Avy Kaufman, casting director for Brokeback Mountain also denied having anything akin to what Hathway said in her project.
Anne Hathaway's The Idea of You was released theatrically in March 2024 and will debut on Prime Video on May 2, 2024.