David Harbour has claimed Madonna asked him to audition for her 2011 movie W.E. because she thought he was “sexy”.

The Stranger Things actor revealed during a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he landed the role of Ernest Simpson, socialite Wallis Simpson’s second husband, in the drama because Madonna found him attractive in the 2008 film Revolutionary Road.

“I got a call from a casting director that I knew very well saying they’re putting together a top-secret movie read-through, but you just have to show up at the St. Regis (hotel) and go in this room, and all will be revealed,” he recalled.

Harbour asked the casting director why he was being pursued for the project and she reluctantly replied, “You have a sex scene in (Revolutionary Road), and they thought you were sexy.”

He continued, “I show up at the St. Regis, and I get in the room, and there’s a bunch of other New York actors there, and in walks Madonna, who’s directing this movie. The first thing that flooded over me, I was like, ‘Wow, Madonna thinks I’m sexy,’ I was really excited about that.”

Kimmel then asked Harbour if making the movie, which was Madonna’s second directorial outing, was a positive experience.

“She is a genius in many realms, (but) the film was not a terrific movie,” he admitted, adding that “we had some inkling” that it wasn’t going to do well.

W.E., starring Abbie Cornish, Andrea Riseborough, James D’Arcy and Oscar Isaac, was a critical and commercial failure.

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