Anne Hathaway revealed in a recent interview with ‘V’ magazine that the process of choosing the right co-star for actors today has undergone a lot of improvements compared to the 2000s, when she was asked to kiss up to 10 people while the film’s production team found the perfect partner.

Anne Hathaway has been promoting her upcoming romantic drama The Idea of ​​You, which revolves around a 40-year-old single mother who falls in love with the 24-year-old lead singer of the hottest boy band in the world. In addition to playing the lead role, the actress is also a producer, so she was deeply involved in the making of the film.

Anne Hathaway and her young co-star

With this genre, choosing a co-star with the right chemistry is very important. Therefore, the actress also “revealed” one of her own experiences in the early days of auditioning for romantic works in the 2000s.

“Back in the 2000s, it was considered normal to ask an actor to date other actors to test their chemistry,” she said. “I was like, ‘There are 10 guys coming here today and you’re going to be alone with them. How do you feel?’. I was like, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ because I wasn’t excited. I thought it was kind of gross.”

She added: “I was too young to object to them, so I just pretended I was excited and went along with it. But to be honest, it wasn’t a power play. No one was trying to be mean or hurt me. It was just a different time and we have different ways now.”

Speaking more about The Idea of ​​You, Hathaway said that instead of kissing a bunch of people, each casting partner was asked to pick a song they thought their character would love, and then the two of them would dance and improvise a little bit. “We’d sit next to each other like we’d just had dinner or gone for a walk or something, and then we’d play music and dance together,” she said.

Recreating the dance scene was a requirement to choose the right co-star in The Idea of ​​You

In The Idea of ​​You, actor Nicholas Galitzine landed the role after choosing an Alabama Shakes song to dance with Hathaway. She described him as “perfect” as soon as he walked into the room. “We were both so comfortable,” the actress said. “I heard Brittany Howard, the lead singer of the band, and I started smiling. Maybe because I was smiling, he relaxed, and we started dancing. No one was acting or doing anything that wasn’t right. Then I looked over and saw Michael Showalter, the executive producer, smiling, and I knew we had found the right person.”