Samantha Barks On 'Les Miserables,' Eponine's Dark Side, And Spitting In Ali G's Face

Twenty-two-year-old Samantha Barks may have been destined to play Eponine in Tom Hooper's ambitious Les Miserables film adaptation, given that she'd warble the iconic character's songs into the mirror at age six and, years later, would go on to earn acclaim playing the tragic innkeepers' daughter in London's West End and in Les Miz's 25th Anniversary concert. But Barks really knew she'd made it when she found herself sparring with onscreen dad Sacha Baron Cohen on the Les Miserables set: "I can’t believe I actually spat in Ali G’s face!"
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Eddie Redmayne On 'Unlearning' 'Les Miserables' & Prince William's Singing

Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, and even rock hobbyist Russell Crowe are known double threats when it comes to acting and singing, but Tom Hooper’s big screen Les Miserables offers its biggest surprise by introducing the musical talents of Brit actor Eddie Redmayne. Trained as a chorister at Eton College (where he went to school with, yes, Prince William — more on that in a moment), the longtime Les Mis fan knew the musical so well he filmed his audition via iPhone while shooting another film. When he got to preparing for the film, however, his Les Mis fanaticism didn’t quite help.
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Screen Actors Guild Unveils 19th Annual Award Nominees

The Screen Actors Guild unveiled its nominees for outstanding performances in 2012 in film and television Wednesday morning. Nominees were named in five film and eight primetime television categories in Los Angeles. Les Misérables, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook lead the theatrical motion picture nominations with four each, while Argo, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Sessions and Skyfall followed with two each.

[Related: 'Lincoln' And 'Les Misérables' Lead Critics Choice Award Nominees]

The Screen Actors Guild Awards styles themselves as the only ones "selected solely by actor' peers in SAG-AFTRA." Two nominating panels — one for television and one for film — each composed of 2,100 randomly selected union members from across the United States chose this year’s actor and stunt ensemble honors nominees.

Final voting information will be mailed via postcard on Friday, Dec. 31, 2012. The eligible SAG-AFTRA membership across the country, numbering approximately 100,000 actors, may vote on all categories.

[Related: Oscar Index: 'Zero Dark' Domination & McConaughey's 'Magic' Moves]

The following nominations include information provided by SAG-AFTRA.

19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Theatrical Motion Pictures Nominations:

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

BRADLEY COOPER / Pat - “SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK” (The Weinstein Company)
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS / Abraham Lincoln - "LINCOLN” (Touchstone Pictures)
JOHN HAWKES / Mark - "THE SESSIONS" (Fox Searchlight)
HUGH JACKMAN / Jean Valjean - "LES MISÉRABLES" (Universal Pictures)
DENZEL WASHINGTON / Whip Whitaker - "FLIGHT" (Paramount Pictures)



Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

JESSICA CHASTAIN / Maya - "ZERO DARK THIRTY” (Columbia Pictures)
MARION COTILLARD / Stephanie - “RUST AND BONE” (Sony Pictures Classics)
JENNIFER LAWRENCE / Tiffany - “SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK” (The Weinstein Company)
HELEN MIRREN / Alma Reville - “HITCHCOCK” (Fox Searchlight)
NAOMI WATTS / Maria - “THE IMPOSSIBLE” (Summit Entertainment)

[Related: 'Zero Dark Thirty' Takes Top National Board Of Review Honors]



Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

ALAN ARKIN / Lester Siegel - “ARGO” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
JAVIER BARDEM / Silva - "SKYFALL" (Columbia Pictures)
ROBERT DE NIRO / Pat, Sr. - "SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK" (The Weinstein Company)
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN / Lancaster Dodd - “THE MASTER” (The Weinstein Company)
TOMMY LEE JONES / Thaddeus Stevens - “LINCOLN” (Touchstone Pictures)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role

SALLY FIELD / Mary Todd Lincoln - "LINCOLN" (Touchstone Pictures)
ANNE HATHAWAY / Fantine - “LES MISÉRABLES” (Universal Pictures)
HELEN HUNT / Cheryl - “THE SESSIONS” (Fox Searchlight)
NICOLE KIDMAN / Charlotte Bless - "THE PAPERBOY” (Millennium Entertainment)
MAGGIE SMITH / Muriel Donnelly - “THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL” (Fox Searchlight)

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture


ARGO (Warner Bros. Pictures)
BEN AFFLECK / Tony Mendez
ALAN ARKIN / Lester Siegel
KERRY BISHÉ / Kathy Stafford
KYLE CHANDLER / Hamilton Jordan
RORY COCHRANE / Lee Schatz
BRYAN CRANSTON / Jack O’Donnell
CHRISTOPHER DENHAM / Mark Lijek
TATE DONOVAN / Bob Anders
CLEA DUVALL / Cora Lijek
VICTOR GARBER / Ken Taylor
JOHN GOODMAN / John Chambers
SCOOT McNAIRY / Joe Stafford
CHRIS MESSINA / Malinov

[Related: LA Film Critics Name 'Amour' Best Picture, Boost 'The Master,' Jazz Up Oscar Race]

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (Fox Searchlight)
JUDI DENCH / Evelyn Greenslade
CELIA IMRIE / Madge Hardcastle
BILL NIGHY / Douglas Ainslie
DEV PATEL / Sonny Kapoor
RONALD PICKUP / Norman Cousins
MAGGIE SMITH / Muriel Donnelly
TOM WILKINSON / Graham Dashwood
PENELOPE WILTON / Jean Ainslie



LES MISÉRABLES (Universal Pictures)
ISABELLE ALLEN / Young Cosette
SAMANTHA BARKS / Eponine
SACHA BARON COHEN / Thénardier
HELENA BONHAM CARTER / Madame Thénardier
RUSSELL CROWE / Javert
ANNE HATHAWAY / Fantine
DANIEL HUTTLESTONE / Gavroche
HUGH JACKMAN / Jean Valjean
EDDIE REDMAYNE / Marius
AMANDA SEYFRIED / Cosette
AARON TVEIT / Enjolras
COLM WILKINSON / Bishop



LINCOLN (Touchstone Pictures)
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS / Abraham Lincoln
SALLY FIELD / Mary Todd Lincoln
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT / Robert Todd Lincoln
HAL HOLBROOK / Preston Blair
TOMMY LEE JONES / Thaddeus Stevens
JAMES SPADER / W.N. Bilbo
DAVID STRATHAIRN / William Seward



SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (The Weinstein Company)

BRADLEY COOPER / Pat
ROBERT DE NIRO / Pat, Sr.
ANUPAM KHER / Dr. Cliff Patel
JENNIFER LAWRENCE / Tiffany
CHRIS TUCKER / Danny
JACKI WEAVER / Dolores

[Related: NY Film Critics Circle Spices Up Oscar Race With 'Zero Dark Thirty' Best Picture Pick]

SAG AWARDS HONORS FOR STUNT ENSEMBLES

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture


THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Columbia Pictures)
THE BOURNE LEGACY (Universal Pictures)
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Warner Bros. Pictures)
LES MISÉRABLES (Universal Pictures)
SKYFALL (Columbia Pictures)

LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
  (Screen Actors Guild 49th Annual Life Achievement Award)
DICK VAN DYKE

(Television nominees follow on the next page)

'Lincoln' And 'Les Misérables' Lead Critics Choice Award Nominees

In the latest round of Awards, the Broadcast Film Critics Association gave their nominations for the 18th annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards, with Steven Spielberg's Lincoln leading the pack with 13 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis as well as Best Supporting Actor for Tommy Lee Jones and Best Supporting Actress for Sally Field. Les Misérables followed with 11 nominations from the organization, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hugh Jackman and Best Supporting Actress for Anne Hathaway.
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'Les Misérables' Hits High Notes, But Also Skitters

I feel I have to confess to a certain partisanship. I grew up listening to Les Misérables. I've seen it performed twice and as a girl had the original Broadway cast recording down cold. It's been years since I've heard it, but watching Tom Hooper's adaptation of Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel and Herbert Kretzmer's musical I realized with amusement and discomfiture that I could still sing along to just about every damn word, at least until whomever was sitting near me took it upon themselves to murder me for the greater good. These songs — and the bridges in between, for Les Misérables is a sung-through affair with almost no spoken dialogue — are permanently etched in my psyche, and I am as far from being able to look at this material with critical distance as a highly trained stage star is from an actual consumptive 1800s French urchin.

That said, can we admit that Les Misérables is an absolute beast of a musical? It faces the impossible task of compressing Victor Hugo's 1500-page novel into three hours (the screen version running a leaner 157 minutes), starting in a prison in the south of France in 1815 before leaping ahead to the town of Montreuil in 1823 and then Paris in 1832, where the main action takes place against the backdrop of the June Rebellion. It's the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), but it has a notable array of other significant characters to be dealt with, ones who love and suffer and (quite frequently) die, and all with musical accompaniment. The signature staging of the play involved a giant turntable that allowed for more fluid scene changes. On screen, that can be accompanied efficiently with an edit, but then you have to deal with the fact that smooshing a whole storyline about Valjean giving up a chance to let a stranger go down for his crimes and choosing to go on the run again ("Who Am I? / The Trial") looks incredibly rushed when taken out of the abstract.

In staging Les Misérables for screen, Hooper has taken a relatively naturalistic and grounded approach to the musical, a choice that's better suited to the subject matter of the story than to the fact that it takes place entirely in song. The vocals were recorded live on set, the backdrops are grimy in a poetic period Gallic style and the big numbers are frequently recorded in close-up, the camera holding on intimate shots of the performers as they stand or sit and sing. The film (which was shot by Danny Cohen, who also served as cinematographer on The King's Speech) treats its songs as it would dialogue, except that dialogue rarely involves spouting about one's feelings at length out loud to no one, a tic that makes much more sense set to music. It's an infuriatingly static way to shoot musical numbers, and it diminishes the bombastic grandeur many of these songs have. 

Éponine (singer and stage actress Samantha Barks) belts out her anguish about her unrequited love while huddled against a pillar; on the big sequence "One Day More" we cut abruptly between different faces as if everyone's in their own individual music video. It's only Russell Crowe in the role of Javert, the police inspector who's devoted his life to chasing down Valjean, who gets the kind of grandiose staging the material demands in his two big songs, as he wanders along prominent Parisian landmarks and the camera swings out to take in the city.

Crowe is, perhaps not coincidentally, the weakest singer, and despite his musical side career looks uncomfortable in the role of Javert, his concentration all seeming to go toward his serviceable warbling rather than acting. But much of the rest of the cast is terrific, particularly not-so-secret theater geeks Jackman and Anne Hathaway, who settle into their roles like they've spent their lives waiting for this opportunity. Hathaway's in fact so good as Fantine, the factory worker forced into prostitution to support her daughter Cosette near the start of the story, that the film staggers a bit after her character departs, her killer rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" one of its emotional highlights. 

Eddie Redmayne's a pleasant surprise as Marius, the idealistic student torn between his love for the grown Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and his desire to join his friends at the barricades for the uprising — the lovers tend to be the two blandest characters in the ensemble, but he finds a genuine gallantry and sweetness to the would-be revolutionary. Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, on the other hand, play designated comic relief couple the Thénardiers even broader than that description would suggest — though "Master of the House" is one of the most dynamically staged of the songs, the tonal difference between their appearances and the rest of the film is jolting.

Even at a generous running time that matches this season's other giant award candidates, Les Misérables seems like it's in a hurry, skittering from one number to the next without interlude. After Hathaway's early high point, it starts to feel numbing, an unending barrage of musical emoting carrying us through Valjean's adopting of Cosette, the latter's first encounter with Marius, the battle at the barricade and a last hour that can feel like it's a non-stop series of death arias. But even if this isn't a great screen adaptation of the musical, there's no resisting the ending, which pairs the film's two brightest stars and then has everyone join in on a reprise of "Do You Hear The People Sing?" Say, do you hear the distant drums? Maybe not, but at that moment the voices coming from the screen and the tune they're crooning are rousing enough to draw a few tears.

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As a faithful rendering of a justly beloved musical, Les Misérables will more than satisfy the show's legions of fans. Even so, director Tom Hooper and the producers have taken a number of artistic liberties with this lavish bigscreen interpretation. more »

Jackman, Hathaway & Co-Stars Are Masters Of The House At 'Les Misérables' Premiere

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Handicapping The Performances Of 'Les Misérables' — Who Will Dazzle In the Movie Musical?

The highly anticipated Les Misérables is on track to become this year’s Chicago — a crowd-pleasing, award-winning, budget-busting musical extravaganza that will sharply divide audiences on the respective talents of its singing, emoting, showboating stars. The stakes are raised by the actors having sung their parts live on set — accompanied by a piano, with the orchestra added in post-production — instead of recording the songs in the safety of a studio and lip-synching during their scenes. The debates over who proved a genuine triple-threat and who embarrassed themselves will last for weeks as we barrel into Oscar season, but let’s get the ball rolling now by ranking who we’re expecting to dazzle us — and who’ll disappoint.
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Oscar Index: Everything's 'Dark' And 'Miserables,' Until We Get 'Unchained'

Welcome back to Movieline's Oscar Index, where each week we take the pulse of the awards chatter en route to Hollywood's big day. This week both Tom Hooper's Les Miserables and Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty surged through the ranks after debuting in their first, successful, awards screenings, though Spielberg's Lincoln still reigns supreme — but Peter Jackson's 48fps gamble The Hobbit and Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained are right around the corner, gunning for the spotlight...
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Great Moments In 'Les Miserables' Mania: Katie Holmes Sings 'On My Own' On 'Dawson's Creek'

With this season's Les Misérables mania in swing, many a moviegoer has been obsessing over those familiar songs and weepy French revolutionary dramatics in anticipation of the Christmas Oscar pic. I've been thinking a lot about the classic Les Mis tune "On My Own," about one girl's unrequited love for a boy who loves another — but not as sung by Eponine about Marius and his beloved little songbird Cosette. I'm talking Joey Potter's Miss Windjammer rendition from season one of Dawson's Creek.
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Anne Hathaway Buzzes About Her Short Hair In Oscar-Buzzed 'Les Misérables'

The film version of Les Misérables is building momentum ahead of its Christmas roll-out in the States, and much has been made about Anne Hathaway's very slimmed down look. She even made fun of her much shorter hair style, likening her new 'look' to resembling her brother.
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Early Reaction: Oscar Race Heats Up As NYC Screening Of 'Les Miserables' Prompts Cheers & Tears

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