Anne Hathaway admits to being inspired by Jessica Chastain

Anne Hathaway's performance in Mother Mary was inspired by Jessica Chastain.

The 43-year-old actress performs a spooky dance routine in the new psychological drama-thriller film, and Anne has revealed that Jessica, her showbiz pal, inspired her dance.

The Oscar-winning star - who appears in the movie alongside the likes of Michaela Coel, Hunter Schafer, Kaia Gerber, Jessica Brown Findlay, and FKA Twigs - told Entertainment Weekly: "I have to give a shout out to Jessica Chastain, who, when she did A Doll’s House, did a danse macabre on stage that I saw right before I left to start this, and it just blew my mind and made me wanna go even deeper than I already had gone."

Anne claimed that the key to her performance was mastering the art of looking "possessed" while dancing.

The acclaimed actress said: "It’s not just about the performance, it's about looking like something else is coming through, that you are actually possessed by something."

Anne recently revealed that she spoke to Charli XCX in preparation for Mother Mary.

The actress plays the titular character in the new movie, which follows the psychosexual affair between pop singer Mary and fashion designer Sam, and Anne revealed that she reached out to Charli in preparation for her role.

The Hollywood actress told People: "The person that I spoke to was Charli ... I wanted to talk to her about the music, she wrote such amazing music that I was going to perform. But I also just had a lot of questions for her about what her life was like, what the experience of being a pop star was."

Anne's respect for pop stars, and other people in the music business more broadly, increased during the film's shoot.

She said: "I just realised about pop stars is they're endurance athletes who can do it all in platform heels. They are the most charming people on the planet and they have this crazy self-belief, like they're so driven to share what's inside of them."