ONTD

11:57 am - 01/01/2013

Anne Hathaway: Les Miserables Director Tom Hooper Discouraged Me From Losing Weight



Anne Hathaway was under a lot of pressure to lose weight for her role as a disease-ridden prostitute in director Tom Hooper's film adaptation of the epic Broadway musical Les Miserables -- but not from Hooper himself, or from anyone else on the production side of the movie.

In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, the 29-year-old Golden Globe nominee admits that her drastic make-under -- which involved nearly starving herself to drop 25 pounds from her already-slim frame -- was an obsession of her own making, not her director's. In fact, he attempted to talk her out of it.

"To be honest, I thought she was going further than she should, and I tried to discourage her," Hooper tells the newspaper of Hathaway's severe weight loss.

"Tom didn't like what I was doing, but he understood why I was doing it," the actress counters. "No one liked what I was doing. By the end, people were hugging me, and they would get emotional because I felt so frail."


Still, the star insists she has no regrets about pushing herself to the brink, especially if it nudges her career forward. (Some say she's already a lock for an Oscar nomination, though she claims her performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" is just "eh.")

"I see the sort of work that people like Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet can do, and I want to do that level of work so badly," she tells the L.A. Times of those Oscar winners. "But I don't believe I'm as gifted as them. So the only thing I can control is how hard I work at it -- how much do I commit to it? How far will I take it?"

Source
zombieland 1st-Jan-2013 06:52 pm (UTC)
I don't see this kind of thinking as sad at all. It puts a fire inside of you that makes you stronger and your work just as, if not more, fulfilling. It's a fact of life that some people are more innately talented than others, but that doesn't mean we can't reach their level of skill. I think Anne makes herself sound envious in that quote, but essentially she's being inspired to push herself. I think being inspired by other people is a beautiful thing.
this_repetition 1st-Jan-2013 07:23 pm (UTC)
I think it depends how secure you are in yourself, though. If you think you're not good enough and are constantly comparing yourself to others, you won't bother.
This page was loaded May 20th 2013, 4:44 am GMT.