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

Someone that is completely deaf would be my first guess.

Really liked this movie but Russell crowe was by far the worst singer. Luckily he wasn't bad enough to ruin it IMO.

Who else were they supposed to cast? It's a huge movie with a massive budget and they need name recognition in the lead roles in order to sell tickets. The fact is there aren't many high profile actors who can sing. Only other casting choice that might have worked, at least that I can think of, is Gerard Butler.

GB is slightly better singer than RC, but not as good an actor.

Ralph Fiennes would have been cool but he doesn't have the profile RC does.

Kevin Spacey? Seriously? Don't think so.

you know what really surprised me was hearing he supposedly got his start singing in theater.

how did that happen?

FWIW Jackman was intermittently good and Anne Hathaway was really good IMO

If you’re making a musical, you should hire singers who can act. In a musical, you want singing that’s technically good. It’s cruel to make people who can’t sing, sing. Jackman wasn’t a bad singer, just miscast. Acting-wise he was wonderful, but could have done with a nobler voice. Bring Him Home is a beautiful song. I wanted it smaller; it should be a prayer to God. I missed a little of Valjean’s vulnerability. But whether it was a directing choice or his ability, I can’t be sure.

Crowe, on the other hand, was nothing. It wasn’t that he was choosing to sing like that, he just couldn’t do anything else.

The only part I liked was when he first (2nd) met Hugh Jackman's character when he was acting as the Mayor.

"Please know me as Javert"

I thought wow, he's going to do alright....then it went downhill from there.

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.