Anne Hathaway says it was “easy” to read with prospective leading men for her upcoming romantic film, The Idea of You, in which she plays a 40-year-old single mom who falls in love with a 24-year-old Harry Styles–esque pop star—a role that eventually went to Nicholas Galitzine of Red, White & Royal Blue fame.
But auditioning with potential love interests was less humane in the aughts, Hathaway said in a recent interview with V Magazine. “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,” she said. “I was told, ‘We have ten 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.”
Hathaway 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.”
When it came time to cast her costar for The Idea of You, on which Hathaway is also a producer, “We asked each of the actors coming in to choose a song that they felt their character would love,” she explained, “that they would put on to get my character to dance, and then we’d do a short little improv.” Though they’d seen several young men already, “I remember laughing when Nick walked in because he was so ridiculously perfect for the part. I just thought, he is it.”
Galitzine selected a song by Alabama Shakes and upon hearing lead singer Brittany Howard’s voice, “I just started smiling,” Hathaway recalled. “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!”
In her recent Vanity Fair cover story, Hathaway expounded on the way that ideas about onscreen sex and romance have shifted during her multidecade career. When she first started in Hollywood, the Oscar winner was told she had no sex appeal, which she never believed: “I was like, ‘I’m a Scorpio. I know what I’m like on a Saturday night,’” Hathaway tells VF, but admitted that attitudes about what was sexy were different at the time. “The male gaze was very dominant and very pervasive and very juvenile,” she remembers, adding that now at age 41, “I feel ready to be a sexual creature out loud.”