Anne Hathaway know the ins and outs of hollywood first hand. He began moving through the industry at the age of 17, achieving immediate stardom thanks to the success of The princess’s Diary (2001) from Disney. During his first years rising to the top he managed to have the public and critics on his side, with The Times comparing it with Judy Garland and the magazine New York with Audrey Hepburn. However, while casting and signing up for new projects during that initial stage, he had to experience an old Hollywood tactic that he now defines as “disgusting.”
The actress is promoting her new romantic drama, The idea of you (premiere May 2 on Amazon Prime Video), and in an interview he gave to the magazine V revealed that the search for chemistry between actors has changed a lot since its beginnings. Fortunately. Because the winner of the oscar revealed that, on one occasion, She had to kiss a handful of different men in the same audition so that the team behind the film in question could find her romantic partner.
“In the 2000s, and this happened to me, it was considered normal to ask an actor to kiss other actors to test chemistry, which is actually the worst way to do it,” said the actress. The Miserables. “They told me: ‘Today 10 guys are coming and you’re already chosen. Aren’t you excited to make out with all of them?’ And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’, because she wasn’t excited. I thought it sounded disgusting.”
“I was very young and very aware of how easy it was to lose everything by being labeled ‘difficult,’ so I just pretended I was excited and moved on,” Hathaway continued. “It wasn’t a power play, no one was trying to be mean or hurt me. “It was just a very different time and we know better now.”
By irony of fate, she ended up earning the label of “difficult” but not for refusing to give kisses at castings as she feared when she was young, but for her own attitude that led her to be called a “diva”, as she herself recognized. . The bubble burst after hits like Secret in the mountain and The Devil Wears Pradawhen she hosted the oscar in one of the ceremonies most hated by critics (he did his work alongside James Franco) and won the statuette for The Miserables in 2013. Suddenly the matter took on viral dimensions, becoming the victim of a hate campaign called “Hathahate” that finally dissipated a decade later, according to the actress, thanks to the opportunity that Christopher Nolan gave her with Interstellar.
“I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who didn’t care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve ever had in one of the best movies I’ve ever been a part of,” he told Vanity Fair last March.
Anne Hathaway She does not reveal what film it is about or if she ended up filming it, but her story adds to a certain extent to all the revelations that different actresses made through the #MeToo movement, since although it is not a situation of harassment or abuse of specific power, It does reflect the distorted vision that existed in Hollywood between the actress-object and the woman.. According to what the interpreter tells it, it is understood that those responsible for the film seemed to be a tactic that would make any girl in her 20s feel excited. But kissing ten men you don’t know, who probably don’t attract you at first, on the same day and due to work demands and not personal pleasure, is not something that exactly excites any woman, regardless of age.
And when, above all, it has already been demonstrated on several occasions that the chemistry between actors has nothing to do with a kiss. Sometimes it is a matter of skin, other times of mutual collaboration in understanding their characters, analyzing them and knowing how to convey their emotions and intentions. In the end, it is something that cannot be invented in post-production (as demonstrated Aquaman and the forced chemistry between Amber Heard and Jason Momoa), because the viewer perceives it in a more emotional than physical way. All of this also involves the projection of personal fantasies on what we see on the screen, the creation of the illusion around passion or romantic idealism.
Chemistry, Hollywood’s headache
Sometimes a director may have two actors in mind for his project but, when placed face to face, the chemistry or mutual interaction is nil. That’s why castings and screen tests exist, to test options and find the right partner. As psychologist and actress Pamela Stephenson Connolly wrote in an article on film chemistry for Guardian, “It is never easy” to find that dose of alchemy and, for that reason, “directors and casting directors look for physical signs of natural attraction between actors, such as dilated pupils, open body language, giggles, redness of the skin or greater mutual awareness” . In this way, “if some of these basic signs are present” then it would only be a matter of giving time for them to get to know each other, for the actors to spend months together on the set and thus, “cause a spark that transcends the workplace.”
Viola Davis says it all comes down to understanding the character’s intentions when he explained his overwhelming chemistry with Denzel Washington in Fences, while many films like Dirty Dancing, love tuneBrokeback Mountain, Hitch: Seduction Expert either La La Land They showed that, sometimes, it is a matter of a story and the couple connecting with the target demographic to which it is directed.
Phoebe Dynevorwho had to create his own chemistry in The Bridgertons Raising the temperature with passionate sequences with Regé-Jean Page, he supports the importance of intimacy coordinators that Hollywood introduced since the #MeToo movement. She claims that having a specialist allowed her and her partner to “feel safe with each other. We formed a friendship, we created a bond.”
Anne Hathaway knows how it should be done
Thanks to its experience over the last two decades, Anne Hathaway showed how you can find chemistry in her new movie without kissing. The actress serves as producer of The idea of you and, as such, she was part of the creative team and the search for the actor who would accompany her in the story. Based on a novel by Robinne Lee, the film revolves around a 40-year-old single mother who falls in love with a 24-year-old pop music star (a story supposedly inspired by Harry Styles).
In this way, to find their romantic partner, he asked the candidates to choose a song that they were convinced the characters would love, put it in the casting for Anne Hathaway’s character to dance to and then do some improvisation. “She was sitting in a chair like we had come back from dinner or a walk or something, we pressed play and we started dancing together,” Anne said.
Without kisses, without forcing uncomfortable physical situations, but resorting to the romantic understanding that the candidate could have of the script and the characters, while they connected to the sound of the music. Finally, Nicholas Galitzine He was chosen after selecting an Alabama Shakes song, making Anne Hathaway see him as “ridiculously perfect” for the role.
“And it was just easy,” Hathaway added. “I heard the voice of [la cantante principal] Brittany [Howard] and I started to smile. And she saw me smile, so she relaxed and we started dancing. Nobody showed off. Nobody was trying to get the job. We were just in a space dancing. I looked over and Michael Showalter, our director, was smiling. Chemistry!”
This article was written exclusively for Yahoo en Español by Cine54.
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