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].