A Winning Role for Anne Hathaway as Fantine in Les Miserables

Anne Hathaway stars as Fantine opposite Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, in the rousing and riveting big screen adaptation of Les Misérables. She plays Fantine, the tragic heroine of Victor Hugo’s epic 150 year-old novel. Fired from her job as a factory worker and finding herself destitute. Fantine is driven into a life of prostitution. She has to make money in order to support her illegitimate daughter.

Directed by Tom Hooper, who won an Oscar in 2010 for The King’s Speech, the film is set against a backdrop of turbulence and revolutionary fervor in post revolutionary, 19th Century France. Les Misérables was produced by Working Title Films, together with Cameron Mackintosh. Mackintosh produced the hugely successful stage production, which has been seen by more than 60 million people in 42 countries since it first opened in 1985.

Hathaway is marvelous as Fantine, infusing her performance with raw emotion and passion. She had her hair cut short (on film) for the role and lost weight to bring physical authenticity to her character who is destitute and suffering from consumption.

Playing Fantine was the culmination of a long journey that began at the age of seven, when she saw her mother, stage actress Kate McCauley in the role, during a touring production in the US. It made a deep impression on her.

Question and Answer with Hugh Jackman

Jackman plays Jean Valjean, the former prisoner who builds a new life when he is unexpectedly given a second chance, and Crowe plays Inspector Javert, the single minded, ruthless policeman who hunts Valjean down the years after he breaks parole. Find out how Hugh Jackman prepared and felt being Jean Valjean in the movie Les Miserables.

Q and A follows:

Q: You’re attempting something that’s never been done with a musical before, singing live on every take. What’s it been like?
A: You know, the musical director, Stephen Brooker, said it’s even better than being on stage because when you are in the pit the actors are 15, 20 feet away on stage, whereas here, he said, ‘I know exactly when you are going to breathe and when you are moving on and you need to stop.’ It’s quite a production. And it’s never been done this way before. I spoke to Simon Hayes (production sound mixer), who is a really great sound guy, and he said that there really wasn’t the technology to do this until about five years ago with the standard and quality of microphone we needed. It’s as good as being in a recording studio.

Q: Let’s go back to the very start. Didn’t you film for a few days in France before switching to England?
A: Yes, we did. We were in the mountains, the Alps, in the South of France and it was below freezing and just going dark. I could see the steam coming out of my mouth (laughs). I could feel the cold in my voice and I was freezing! And somehow that was perfect for playing this guy, Valjean, who is on this journey of purgatory. And even though he’s just been let out of jail he is still carrying that weight of who he was and not being accepted by society. And I knew then and there that’s Tom’s gamble of singing live was going to pay off in a great way. This is a bold decision but I think it’s absolutely the right decision – once you accept that you have entered a world where everyone is singing, stay with it, and that’s how the musical was written. And the thing is, when you are singing outside – like those first scenes in France where it was freezing cold – it sounds like you are outside, when you are singing in a church it sounds like you are in a church. It doesn’t sound synthetic or like you are in a recording studio where all the rough edges, that immediacy, is taken out.
 

Q: It must be harder on your voice singing live for multiple takes?
A: I can remember singing at one in the morning inside this beautiful chapel where I literally had steam coming out of my mouth because it was that cold. Singing live for every take is not easy and you have to really look after your voice. You wake up, say seven in the morning, and you are still singing at one in the morning - that’s a long game. It’s not like a theatre show where you pretty much shut down a little bit during the day, take it easy for a few hours, and then you gear up for your performance. You warm up, bang, you are out on stage for two hours. This is a long game. And because of the nature of filming, you don’t know exactly when you are on – you prepare for a scene but you might have to wait a few hours before you are called to do it. So it’s been probably one of the toughest, but most rewarding jobs I’ve ever done. The idea of singing live is daunting but it gives you freedom. I can go out and each and every take is different, you can play it with different emotions, speed it up, slow it down, put different emphasis on certain lines in different takes. It’s been extraordinary.

HUGH JACKMAN Plays JEAN VALJEAN IN LES MISÉRABLES

The night before the cameras rolled on Les Misérables, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe presented the BAFTA award for Best Film at a glittering ceremony in London. Although Jackman and Crowe, both Australians, have been friends for years, it was the first time that they had worked together.

Funny, hugely entertaining and with perfect timing, they proved to be a formidable double act and stole the show. It was, says Jackman, the perfect way to warm up for the main event – filming Les Misérables, the world’s most successful musical, for director Tom Hooper with a stellar all-star cast that includes Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.

“Russell and I have always got on well but BAFTA was the first time we’ve ever done anything like that,” says Jackman. “And I remember being on stage and he was seriously making me laugh, and I thought, ‘this is really going to work..’ “And even though what we’re doing on Les Mis is not comedic, we felt like a team. And I said that to him, ‘man, this feels like a good team…’ And he said, ‘absolutely brother.’ And after the show he gave me a hug and said, ‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’ And we were off and running. “That was the night before we started filming so it was kind of cool. And then we got to work on Les Misérables and that teamwork continued. Not just with and Russell and myself, but everyone – Tom, Anne, Amanda, Eddie, everybody. It was a great team.”

Jackman plays Jean Valjean, the former prisoner who builds a new life when he is unexpectedly given a second chance, and Crowe plays Inspector Javert, the single minded, ruthless policeman who hunts Valjean down the years after he breaks parole.

Set against the backdrop of violent political unrest in 19th century France, Les Misérables, based on Victor Hugo’s classic 1862 novel, is an epic story of broken dreams and unrequited love. More than 60 million people have watched the musical, at venues all over the world, since it first opened in London in 1985.

Jackman himself is a huge fan of the show and at one point, there was a slim chance that he would appear in the musical – in a different role. Impresario Cameron Mackintosh, who has produced many of the biggest stage hits of the last quarter of a century, including Les Misérables, first met Jackman in 1998 when he starred as Curly in the National Theatre’s acclaimed London production of Oklahoma! for director Trevor Nunn.

“For years Cameron had been asking me to do the role of Javert on stage,” Jackman explains. “I wanted to do it but the timings never really worked out. And then I heard about the film from my agent, who is a mad Les Mis fan – he must have watched it 100 times – and we talked about it and obviously I was very interested. “And I’d always been asked to play Javert, but the more I thought about it the more I thought that Valjean would be better for me. I just felt more empathy and closer to that character. And so when they told me that they were thinking of Russell for Javert that made perfect sense to me. So I went in to audition as Valjean.”

Russell Crowe plays the iconic antagonist Javert in Les Miserables

Russell Crowe, an Academy winner for his brilliant performance in Gladiator, is known for his total commitment to a role, whether it’s playing a boxer (Cinderella Man), a Roman general/ slave (Gladiator) or a tortured mathematics genius (A Beautiful Mind). Les Misérables was no different. He threw himself into the project with typical gusto.

Crowe was born in New Zealand and raised, mostly, in Australia. He first acted as a child, appearing in an episode of the Australian TV show Spyforce when he was 6 years old. His first musical was Grease at the Independent theatre in Auckland and he won various acting awards in Australia before making his first Hollywood film, The Quick and the Dead, with Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman and Leonardo DiCaprio in 1995.

In 2000 he received the first of three consecutive Oscar nominations for playing tobacco industry whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand in Michael Mann’s The Insider, his second came for Gladiator and the following year he was nominated again for his portrayal of troubled mathematics genius John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.

His forthcoming films include Man of Steel, Broken City and Noah.