Behind the Scenes of Anne Hathaway's Cover Shoot and Les Miserables

(dramatic music)

Les Mis is the story of a man,

who is very far from love,

in fact is consumed and created from hate.

And over the course of his life

he learns to love and opens his heart

and transforms his life.

My mom played my character, Fantine,

when I was seven.

I kind of realized early on that

I had fallen in love with movies,

and that being a musical theater actress

which had been my original dream

was probably gonna take a back seat to that.

And so then to have singing be something

that was so crucial in me getting this part,

and getting to play this part,

it was unforeseen and really welcome.

The similarities between getting ready

for a part like Selena Kyle,

which was very physically demanding,

and a role like Fantine, which was very vocally challenging,

I had to get stronger for each of them.

For Les Mis, I had to get into really great vocal shape,

which meant that I could sing for hours and hours and hours,

without getting fatigued.

One of the most extraordinary things,

and complicated things about this film was,

the meeting of the theater world, and the film world.

Hugh and Annie worked out how to combine

those two worlds and were really,

sort of role models in some ways

as to how to make this incredibly famous work

have new life breathed into it.

This movie is a story of the heart,

and it's incredibly emotional,

and so to be able to,

portray those emotions live, the way you would

with dialogue, was an incredible gift.

I think it allowed for a much wider range

of nuance, and emotion to make it

into the performances for everyone.

I decided that I wanted to really do

the physical transformation, really lose the weight,

and really cut off my hair as opposed to wear a wig.

I thought, let's get it real, let's get it raw.

Let's show that these are real people with real stakes.

So what was amazing was watching her do that,

and then turn up on the set and,

and using all that but still being able to perform

to a level that was kind of unrivaled.

It's been wonderful getting to revisit it,

as an adult, and see that all those things,

they haven't changed.

You know how sometimes when you look back on things

that you loved as a child,

and they don't hold up as well?

This one definitely does.

(dramatic music)