Anne Hathaway has made her mark in Hollywood, winning an Academy Award, an Emmy, and a Golden Globe. She has starred in iconic roles in films that she will always be remembered for like The Princess Diaries, Rachel Getting Married, The Devil Wears Prada, The Dark Knight Rises, Les Misérables, and Ocean’s 8. She is about to release her most recent film, the romantic drama The Idea of You, which she also produced, and she talked about the process of finding her leading man for this film versus how it was when she was still starting out.
In a recent interview with V Magazine, 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 10 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. 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.”
She went on to describe how things were done to find the leading man to play opposite her character in her most recent film, saying:
“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.”
Nicholas Galitzine won the part after choosing a song by Alabama Shakes to dance to with Hathaway, who remembered Galitzine being “so ridiculously perfect” for the role as soon as he walked in the room.
“And it was just easy. I heard [lead singer] Brittany [Howard]’s voice and I just started smiling. 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!”
The Idea of You debuted to strong reviews at the SXSW Film Festival last month. The movie streams on Amazon Prime Video starting May 2.
