re: Whose idea was it to give Russell Crowe a singing part in Les Miserables?

Think I figured out where the director was coming from with this selection.

I listed to several versions of Stars on Youtube last night. They all sounded alike: Pretty voices that sounded nothing like a cop.

Crowe's character is a cop and back then, was probably somewhat of a tough guy. The vocalists I saw performing on Youtube, and these were from the actual shows themselves, were pretty boys. Just can't picture them as an actual Javert. Crowe came off as a Javert as Geoffery Rush did in the screen version. The voice is rough and the upper range sucks (lower range wasn't bad) but it did come off to me as more authentic than the opera stars. His chasing Valjean was much more believable in the song than it was when sung by the opera stars.

Voice wasn't as good as the others by far but it was more real and conveyed the tone of the movie much better in terms of portraying the character.