Anne Hathaway on Having to ‘Face the Guillotines’ to Sing Iconic Les Miserables Song on Film

Landing a role in the upcoming film adaptation of Les Miserables was a coup for Broadway-loving actors like Anne Hathaway, but the actress' excitement was tinged with terror when she landed the role of Fantine. The pressure of singing the musical's beloved songs like “I Dreamed a Dream” nearly took their toll on the Oscar nominee.

"Well, that's actually the thing we talked about when I first came in to film," she told New York Magazine’s Vulture blog. "I apparently looked like I was ready to face the guillotines. They just kept telling me and the cast to ignore the iconic nature of Les Miz and of the song. I had to sing it as if it had never been sung or heard before."

Sporting a poker face proved to be a challenge for Hathaway as she had heard "I Dreamed a Dream" before. A lot. "My mom was in the show when I was a kid,” she explained. “She actually covered Fantine and went on the national tour, so it was a really big part of my childhood."

The newly released Les Miserables trailer not only features Hathaway’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream,” the preview also shows one of Fantine’s heartbreaking acts of desperation, selling her hair to feed her child—the real-life result of which is Hathaway’s freshly shorn hair. "I did it for a film, so it really wasn't about me and my security," she said of her new crop, "I'm just so pleased with how I look, so I now quite like having short hair."

See Hathaway and co-stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks and more when the Les Miserables film hits theaters December 7.