Kate Beckinsale has bad memories of her early days in Hollywood after one "shady experience" with a talent spotter who attempted to ply her with alcohol.

The Underworld star was a teenager when she attended a meeting about her career, and claims a male scout offered her a bottle of whiskey-based liqueur Baileys.

Beckinsale fled the room, and she's still upset about the "horrible situation" she found herself in.

She tells Total Film magazine, "I did have one slightly shady experience. Someone asked me to come to a meeting very late at their hotel, and I went along and was told how incredibly talented I was on the basis of very little.

"But if you're 17, you're thinking, 'Ooh, he can tell - he's spotted me'. Then he wanted me to drink a bottle of Baileys, and just when he got a bit close, I said, 'Well, it is a school night and I've got double Russian (lessons) in the morning so I'd better go'.

"It wasn't until about five years later that I realized I'd really narrowly escaped a horrible situation. And he was so much older than me and deeply unattractive."