Anne Hathaway shed 25 lb for her role as Fantine in the film musical Les Miserables by living on lettuce leaves.
Her ten-year-old British co-star Isabelle Allen, who plays Fantine’s daughter Cosette, described Anne Hathaway’s diet as “rabbit food” and said it left the actress so fragile that she broke her arm in a fall.
Anne Hathaway, 30, referred to her diet as “starvation” but refused to reveal details of what she ate to discourage anyone from looking as emaciated as she did as Fantine, a poverty-stricken factory worker forced to turn to prostitution.
In a recent interview Anne Hathaway revealed she had shed 25 lb for the role – 10 lb in three weeks before filming and 15 lb during production.
“I just had to stop eating for a total of 13 days shooting,” she said.
On Thursday, Anne Hathaway said: “I was on a starvation diet to look like I was near death in a film… but I went at it with a plan and I had a guide, a nutritionist kind of helped me with it.”
Anne Hathaway shed 25 lb for her role as Fantine in the film musical Les Miserables by living on lettuce leaves
Isabelle Allen, who features on the poster for Les Miserables, said she saw the extreme lengths Anne Hathaway went to for her role.
The pair had lunch in New York after the film’s premiere last year and Anne Hathaway was drawn to the chips that Isabelle Allen was eating.
“She said <<this is real food>> or something like that. Well it was because obviously she’d been eating… I call it rabbit food, because she was only eating salad and greens and vegetables because of her diet, because of her character.”
She added that Anne Hathaway had broken her arm because “she was so thin and fragile. She was riding a bike and she broke her arm”.
Isabelle Allen, who lives near Eastbourne, East Sussex, said she treated Anne Hathaway as “a big sister” during the filming and admitted she has wanted to be like her since she saw her in The Princess Diaries.
Eating disorder campaigners say the time the two spent together may not have been good for Isabelle Allen and warned that the film industry has a “toxic preoccupation with extreme thinness”.
But Isabelle Allen’s mother Elaine said: “From start to finish it was obvious [Anne Hathaway] was doing it for the role. The day she finished filming she said she could start eating again and I think it was a relief.”
Actress Anne Hathaway has revealed the extreme measures she took to lose weight for her role in Les Miserables.
Anne Hahaway, 29, takes on the role of the tragic Fantine in the big screen version of the hit musical and she admits she was “state of deprivation, physical and emotional” when filming ended.
To prepare for the part of a dying prostitute in the Nineteenth century French underclass, Anne Hathaway had to shave all her hair off and lose a drastic amount of weight as she didn’t want to rely on props or special effects.
Anne Hathaway told Vogue magazine that she dropped 10 pounds before shooting began on a strict cleanse.
She then lost another 15 lbs by following a near-starvation diet during two-week break in filming, consisting of two thin squares of dried oatmeal paste a day, the magazine reports.
Anne Hathaway told Vogue magazine: “I had to be obsessive about it – the idea was to look near death. Looking back on the whole experience – and I don’t judge it in any way – it was definitely a little nuts.
“It was definitely a break with reality, but I think that’s who Fantine is anyway.”
She said: “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.
“The first time I really threw everything into a part, which was when I did Rachel Getting Married, there was no one waiting for me when I got back. This time, Adam [Schulman, her husband] was there.
“He gets what I do and who I am and supports me in it, and that’s pretty awesome.”
Anne Hathaway has revealed the extreme measures she took to lose weight for her role in Les Miserables
But now Anne Hathaway seems to have re-gained her curves and she positively glowed on the magazine’s front cover.
Her creamy complexion is flawless and just a hint of cleavage can be seen in her elegant bottle-green gown.
Her elfin crop is slicked back to show off her large eyes and generous mouth and her only accessories are a pair of heavy diamond studs.
Anne Hathaway also opens up about her September wedding to Schulman, 31.
The couple tied the knot in Big Sur, California, and Anne Hathaway wore a custom-made Valentino number.
She said working with the designer was a memory she will “treasure forever”.
Anne Hathaway also proved recently that it’s not just dramatic, high-brow roles she can turn her hand to.
She hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend and her raucous performances, including parodying Katie Holmes and Claire Danes, went down a storm.
