Oscar-winning actress Anne Hathaway has described a “gross” past audition where she had to “make out” with 10 men.

The 41-year-old star described the experience which she said happened in the early 2000s as “a very different time”.

She told 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.

“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.

“And I was so young and terribly aware how easy it was to lose everything by being labelled ‘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.”

Hathaway did not specify which film the audition was for or who any of the male actors were.

She compared the casting process with that of her upcoming romantic comedy The Idea Of You, in which she plays a 40-year-old single mum who becomes involved with a 24-year-old boy band singer.

“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 [improvisation]”, Hathaway said.

Describing the casting with 29-year-old British actor Nicholas Galitzine – who won the role – she said he chose a song by Alabama Shakes and the audition was “just easy”.

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She explained: “I heard [the lead singer of Alabama Shakes] Brittany’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!”

Galitzine has previously starred in Sky Atlantic’s Mary & George opposite Oscar-winner Julianne Moore, Prime Video comedy Red, White & Royal Blue playing Prince Henry.

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Hathaway first made her name in 2001 after the release of the original The Princess Diaries film opposite Dame Julie Andrews. In the interview, she addressed rumours of a third film in the franchise.

“We’re in a good place…That’s all I can say. There’s nothing to announce yet. But we’re in a good place,” she said.

The sequel to the original – The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement – came out three years after the first in 2004.

Hathaway also said “there’s no hiding” the fact that she would love to appear on Broadway during her career.

“[Being on Broadway] was my first dream, you know? And so many amazing, extraordinary things have happened to me but not that one yet. It’s a goal that is very, very much alive inside of me,” she added.

The Idea Of You is streaming from Thursday 2 May on Prime Video.

A celebrity handbag designer whose products have been used by Britney Spears and on Sex And The City has been jailed for smuggling crocodile handbags into the US for fashion shows.

Nancy Gonzalez, 71, admitted recruiting couriers to carry as many as four products each on commercial flights from her native Colombia to the US for New York Fashion Week, among other high-profile events.

Gonzalez, who was arrested in 2022 in Cali, and later extradited to the US, was sentenced to 18 months in a federal court in Miami on Monday for breaking US wildlife laws.

The handbags, made from the hides of caiman and pythons bred in captivity, were worth as much as $2m (£1.6m), prosecutors said, but the designer’s lawyers said each skin cost only around $140 (£113).

Sometimes she failed to obtain the proper import permits from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, something backed by a widely ratified international treaty governing the trade in endangered and threatened species, the court heard.

Holding back tears, Gonzalez told the court before sentencing that she deeply regretted not fully complying with US laws.

She said: “From the bottom of my heart, I apologise to the United States of America. I never intended to offend a country to which I owe immense gratitude. Under pressure, I made poor decisions.”

Salma Hayek, Britney Spears and Victoria Beckham are among celebrities who bought Gonzalez’s carefully crafted handbags.

Her work was also included in a 2008 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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In court, her lawyers played a 2019 video of top buyers from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks and others praising the designer’s creativity, productivity and humanity.

But prosecutor Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald said the retailers “must be regretting they were ever put up to that and if they heard it was presented in court they would cringe”.

“They have their own brand to protect,” he added.

Mr Watts-Fitzgerald, who compared Gonzalez’s behaviour to that of drug traffickers, said her activities were “all driven by the money”.

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Her lawyers pleaded for leniency for the woman, who, they said, created “the very first luxury, high-end fashion company from a third world country,” which later competed with industry giants like Dior, Prada and Gucci.

They also argued that only 1% of the merchandise she imported into the US lacked proper papers and were samples for New York Fashion Week and other events.

Prosecutors had been seeking a stiffer sentence of 30 to 37 months. But the judge said he was taking into account the nearly 14 months she spent in a Colombian prison awaiting extradition.

She was ordered to begin her sentence on 6 June.

Dominic West has revealed that pictures of him kissing actress Lily James being published in the press “informed” how he portrayed Prince Charles in The Crown.

In October 2020, co-stars James and West were photographed embracing while they were in Rome.

West, 54, who is married, now says the ensuing tabloid imbroglio helped him play the role of Charles, while he was Prince of Wales, in The Crown.

The actor told The Times: “I’d had a very acute understanding of what it’s like to feel the horror of your name or your photo in the newspapers.

“There is that dreadful, freezing moment when something is revealed about you. I think anyone can understand how that feels.

“But I’d been through it, and it must have informed how I approached it. That gut feeling of horror isn’t something you get inured to.”

During his stint as Charles, he played some of the most controversial moments of his life, including his divorce from Princess Diana, her death and his relationship with now Queen, Camilla Parker Bowles.

Following the pictures being published, West and his wife Catherine Fitzgerald released a statement about their marriage, describing themselves as “very much still together”.

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Fitzgerald was also said at the time to have banned West from speaking with the actress, who first shot to fame for her role in Downton Abbey.

James, 35, and West were together in the Italian capital amid the filming of an adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love.

West played the now King in two seasons of The Crown opposite Elizabeth Debicki’s Princess Diana and Olivia Williams Camilla Parker Bowles.

He has been nominated for a Best Leading Actor TV BAFTA for his portrayal, with the ceremony set to go ahead on 28 April.