Anne Hathaway spoke about her early career experiences, recalling an audition where she had to perform a romantic scene with ten boys and feign excitement. She described this as a negative experience.
In an interview, Hathaway mentioned that during the 2000s, actors were often asked to engage in intimate scenes during chemistry tests, which she considered unpleasant.
She shared, “I was told, ‘Today we have ten people coming, and you have been selected. Aren’t you excited to have relationships with all of them?’ And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ Because I wasn’t excited, I thought it was gross.”
She explained, “I was very young and knew very well that by saying the word ‘difficult,’ I could make everything happen. So, I just pretended that I was excited and just moved on with the situation. It wasn’t a power play; no one was trying to be horrible to me or hurt me. It was just a different time, and we know better now.”
For the 2024 film The Idea of You, producers took a different approach to chemistry tests. Hathaway mentioned, “We asked each upcoming actor to choose a song that they felt their character would like, and that would force my character to dance too.”