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Anne Hathaway’s Best Supporting Actress nomination seemed a foregone conclusion — and most Oscar pundits agree that the award itself is hers to lose. But there was a time when Hathaway’s performance wasn’t such a sure thing.
Claude-Michele Schönberg’s Les Mis has been performed countless times since its premiere in the ’80s — and the part of virtuous Fantine, a factory worker whose fall from grace leads to one of the show’s most emotional moments, had been played by some of the theater world’s biggest names, including powerhouses Patti LuPone, Randy Graff, and Lea Salonga.
So how did Hathaway manage to put her own stamp on such an iconic role? “I was really lucky to get to sing a great song, period. But I was also lucky to be the first person to sing it on film,” the actress told EW this morning. She also noted that director Tom Hooper and his team placed “I Dreamed a Dream” later in the film than it appears in the stage show, “so I got to sing it from a more raw place than anyone had ever gotten to sing it before.”
