Anne Hathaway told not to lose weight

Los Angeles - Anne Hathaway was discouraged from losing weight.

The 29-year-old actress - who shed 12kg for her role as Fantine in Les Miserables - has admitted the film's director Tom Hopper told her she didn't need to go to extremes for the part and everyone around her was concerned for her health at the time.

She told the Los Angeles Times newspaper: "Tom didn't like what I was doing, but he understood why I was doing it. No one liked what I was doing. By the end, people were hugging me, and they would get emotional because I felt so frail."

'An ongoing source of shame'

Tom backed up Anne's claims, saying: "To be honest, I thought she was going further than she should, and I tried to discourage her."

The newlywed star - who married her long-term boyfriend Adam Shulman in a low key ceremony in September - previously revealed she "lived on hummus and radishes" to slim down to play prostitute Fantine and admitted she is ashamed of being so consumed by staying slim.

Asked if she thinks about her weight daily, she said: "If I'm honest, yes. There's an obsessive quality to it that I thought I would've grown out of by now. It's an ongoing source of shame for me.

"I just think about the ridicule you get if you have an off day. If people weren't watching, I'd be so much more eccentric... I actually really don't feel like getting made fun of. So I put on something boring and navy and go out and try to disappear."

Meanwhile the actress admits that she doesn't think she is going to win an Oscar as she thinks she isn't talented enough.

She said: "I see the sort of work that people like Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet can do, and I want to do that level of work so badly. But I don't believe I'm as gifted as them. So the only thing I can control is how hard I work at it - how much do I commit to it? How far will I take it?"