Beckinsale frets over daughter's audition

Rex Features

Kate Beckinsale has admitted that she was reluctant to let her daughter audition for a role in her upcoming movie in case she didn't get the part.

Nine-year-old Lily stars as a younger version of her mother in Everybody's Fine alongside Robert De Niro, but Beckinsale confessed that she initially refused to let Lily read for the role.

"I said no because I thought she’d be on the set, and if she didn’t get it, it would be such a disaster," she told Capitol File. "But she insisted on auditioning, and got it, and had her three scenes with Robert De Niro, which I thought was absolutely wild at the age of eight."

Earlier this month the Underworld actress joked that her daughter would have preferred working with Spongebob Squarepants to De Niro.