Anne Hathaway's portrayal of dying prostitute Fantine in Les Miserables is one of the year's most-talked about performances. It's so intense that even the actress herself can't watch it without tearing up!
"When I saw it, I did cry, but not because of what I was doing [on screen]. It was because I was back in the process of making it," Hathaway told MTV News.
"For me, when I see it… it brings me a lot closer to Fantine. She's so broken that I actually have to protect myself a little bit," said Hathaway of her character, who sings the iconic song, "I Dreamed a Dream."
It sounds like Hathway has some post-traumatic stress from making Les Miserables, which is not too surprising, considering what she went through. In order to play Fantine, she stopped eating for all thirteen days of shooting, chopped off her hair and had what she called "a break with reality."
"I was in such a state of deprivation — physical and emotional. When I got home, I couldn't react to the chaos of the world without being overwhelmed. It took me weeks till I felt like myself again," she told Vogue.
Why the extreme dedication? It turns out that the role holds deep personal significance for Hathaway, whose mother understudied Fantine in the American tour of Les Miserables when Anne was a girl. Watching her mother's performance, Hathaway told New York, magazine, "I sobbed so hard that the woman next to me — who didn't know that it was my mother I was seeing — gave me her pack of tissues."
"I remember everything about that night: I remember what the weather was like, I remember what I was wearing. It's one of the greatest moments of my life, and certainly one of the most definitive moments of my life," Hathaway revealed. "That was the night I decided to become an actress."
Watch the iVillage interview with Anne Hathaway