English funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen stars in the Tom Hooper movie Les Misérables as Thenardier and he has revealed how he was banned from miming. Sacha lost his voice while filming Les Misérables and offered to mime his songs but Tom was having none of it.
Sacha Baron Cohen with Isla Fisher
Cohen explained to Deadline, “After a month I actually lost my voice. And I said to Hooper, and this is actually a testament to him, 'Fine, I'll just mime it. I've got the track of me singing and I'll just mime it.' And he said 'Absolutely not. It has to be sung live.' And so they shut down the movie. They shut it down for a week during which time I was forbidden from speaking. I was on voice rest.”
He added, “They brought in Chris Martin's vocal teacher; who's the head of voice at the Royal Academy of Music to train me up again in three days... But when you see the first take of (song) Master Of The House it sounds like I'm a drunk guy who's got a croaky voice but that actually was me with a very croaky voice. Tom Hooper found himself with Helena Bonham Carter (who plays Thenardier's wife) and a soft-voiced, stumbling English actor; it was like The King's Speech all over again.”
Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter in Les Misérables
Les Misérables also stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried and Anne Hathaway and is out now in the US, while it will then be released in the UK on January 11, 2013.
Les Misérables movie trailer
