Anne Hathaway pranked Ellen DeGeneres and her show's audience by getting them to take part in a made-up "citrus healing" ritual.

The actor made everyone hold a peeled fruit up to their mouths and make loud breathing noises.

She later explained that the whole thing was a prank and the message was that you shouldn't "put something in your mouth just because a celebrity tells you to."

Anne Hathaway pranked the audience on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" by making them take part in a fake "citrus healing" ritual.

Appearing on the show to promote her new film "Serenity," Hathaway told the (fictional) story of how she and her family had stumbled upon a "former hippy enclave from the '60s" while on a road trip along the California coastline over the holidays.

As she told the story, she asked audience members to reach under their seats, find the clementine that had been left for each of them, and start peeling it.

Hathaway embarks on the ritual. YouTube/The Ellen Show

Hathaway said she'd found a book called "Citrus Healing."

"It was all the ways that you can incorporate citrus into your life to raise your health," she said. "Aromatherapy, you can use the peels for cleaning products, and one of the things was how to incorporate citrus into your meditation practice.

"It was called 'Clementime.' It was cute."

Hathaway got the whole audience and DeGeneres to perform the ritual, holding the peeled clementines up to their mouths and making loud breathing noises.

"Do you guys feel a little bit better? Feel good?" she asked.

"That's impossible, I made the whole thing up."

"What?" DeGeneres asked with a clementine in her mouth.

DeGeneres takes part in Hathaway's "citrus healing" ritual. YouTube/The Ellen Show

"I made the whole thing up, Ellen," Hathaway said. "The takeaway of this is: Do not put something in your mouth just because a celebrity tells you to. You are free to throw your clementine at me now."

Hathaway said one of her New Year's resolutions for 2019 was to "use my fame to prank a whole lot of people at once," and she thanked the audience for helping her fulfill it.

During the same appearance, the Academy Award-winning actor also revealed that she'd decided to give up drinking for 18 years.