Anne Hathaway: I Insisted on Getting Gaunt for Role

Even 'Les Miz' director thought she was going too far

By John Johnson, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 29, 2012 9:56 AM CST

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Anne Hathaway: I Insisted on Getting Gaunt for Role — This film image released by Universal Pictures shows Anne Hathaway portraying Fantine, a struggling, sickly mother forced into prostitution in 1800s Paris, in "Les Miserables." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures, Laurie Sparham)

Anne Hathaway tells the Los Angeles Times that, at age 30, she finally thinks she's shed the goody-goody typecasting that followed her Princess Diary days as a teen. In the interview, Hathaway comes off as fiercely driven, as one anecdote about her role as Fantine in Les Miserables makes clear: The already thin Hathaway dropped 25 pounds to play the sickly Fantine.

Director Tom Hooper: "To be honest, I thought she was going further than she should, and I tried to discourage her."
Hathaway: "Tom didn't like what I was doing, but he understood why I was doing it. No one liked what I was doing. By the end, people were hugging me and they would get emotional because I felt so frail."

Click for the full interview, which includes Hathaway at age 16 feeling like a failure because Olympian Tara Lipinksi had won gold at the same age. (Read more Anne Hathaway stories.)