For fans of Les Miserables and its song “The Confrontation”, there’s nothing they’d probably want to see less than two Australians having a go at singing the thing at a pub on a drunken Saturday night. Well, unless those two Australians happen to be Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, of course, who play Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert in Tom Hooper’s upcoming adaptation of the famous musical, and have taken to singing musical songs impromptu like, what, theatre’s cool or something now?
Yes, that’s exactly what occurred this previous Saturday night going by a new video that has emerged online, the kind of experience that you might try to relay to your friends only for one of them to call you a great dirty liar behind your back. “No, seriously, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe got up, and, like, sung a song from Les Mis. It was incredible!” Thank God for YouTube, which now primarily exists to prove that, uh-huh, these thing do happen.
After heading out to Joe’s Pub for some drinks, the pair were presumably pulled up on stage and asked to sing out a rendition of “The Confrontation”, a song which involves overlapping lyrics and that thing where somebody sings over you with different lyrics that makes it really hard to concentrate on what you’re singing whilst listening to what they’re singing at the same time (insert better explanation here). Bah. It looks hard, anyway. Check out the clip of said events below.
Surprisingly – given the circumstances and venue – they both sound pretty good. Obviously Jackman is the more accomplished singer of the two, but Russell Crowe gives a sound performance considering that everybody has been worried about his vocal range with regards to this new film adaptation. I’d say this proves we don’t have much to worry about, though I’d argue that Crowe actually sounds better here than he does in the clips that’ve been released so far.
For those of you reading this article and still trying to pronounce “that French word”, Les Miserables tells the story of Jean Valjean, a prisoner who breaks parole and is pursued “across the years” by an obsessive, frantic police inspector called Javert who dedicates his life to putting him back behind bars. These two men are bound together as their paths take them through a student revolution in 19th century France, and a number of other events too complicated to explain here.
What do you think of the clip, anyway? Impressed by the vocals? Excited to see this on the big screen? In the meantime, check out our list of scenes we’re excited to see in Les Miserables (it even contains “The Confrontation”).
Source: IndieWire