Anne Hathaway cast in big screen adaptation of Les Miserables

Anne Hathaway has been cast as the lead female role in the Hollywood adaptation of stage musical Les Miserables.

The 28-year-old will be playing the prostitute Fantine in the film, alongside Hugh Jackman who has been cast as Jean Valjean and Russell Crowe who will be playing Inspector Javert.

Tom Hooper of 'The King's Speech' fame will be directing the film, which is set to be released on 7 December 2012.

Hathaway has already shown she can sing as she performed a parody of On My Own from the musical at this year's Oscars, which she co-hosted with Jackman.

She is currently filming 'The Dark Knight Rises' in which she plays Catwoman and has recently been seen putting on an English accent in 'One Day'.

Les Miserables is an 1862 French novel by Victor Hugo, which made its Broadway debut in 1987.

It tells the story of several French characters over a 17-year period starting in 1815 and ending in the 1832 June Rebellion.