Adam Lambert on LES MIS: 'Actors Pretending to Be Singers'

By: Dec. 31, 2012
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Rock star Adam Lambert took to Twitter yesterday to give his review of the recently released epic musical LES MISERABLES. The American Idol Season 8 runner up had some harsh words for some of the film's most well-known cast members posting: "Les Mis: Visually impressive w great Emotional performances... But the score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers." He went on to note," ...it's an opera. Hollywoods movie musicals treat the singing as the last priority."

Lambert also commented on director Tom Hooper's choice to have the actor's sing live rather than lip sync from a pre-recorded track: "And I do think it was cool they were singing live - but with that cast, they should have studio recorded and sweetened the vocals." He suggests, "The industry will say "these actors were so brave to attempt singing this score live but why not cast actors who could actually sound good?"

On a positive note, the singer offers, "Anne Hathaway as Fantine and Enjolras [Aaron Tveit] were the exceptions for me... Helena B Carter and Sasha B Cohen were great too. Eponine's [Samantha Barks] voice was cool too...

Yet Lambert laments, "I felt like I should ignore the vocals and focus on the emotional subtext- but the singing was so distracting at times it pulled me out." He concludes, "Sorry for being so harsh but it's so True!"

Helmed by The King's Speech's Academy Award-winning director, Tom Hooper, the Working Title/Cameron Mackintosh production stars Hugh Jackman, Oscar winner Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks, with Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.



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