Her voice has most definitely been Auto-Tuned. I actually just wrote about this on my blog today, if you want to read about specific places where they messed with her voice. I’m a voice teacher and I really hate the fake “perfection” that we hear.
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We all know Emma Watson as Hermione Granger — that's what happens when you have a starring role in a beloved franchise for 10 years. Over the year's she's branched out, with leading roles in teen dramas The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Bling Ring, and a particularly memorable cameo in This Is The End. Now six years after the release of the final Harry Potter movie, Watson is getting ready to make her biggest step away from Hermione as Belle in Disney's live action Beauty and the Beast. When it was announced that Watson would be playing Belle, everyone had the same question: can Emma Watson really sing?
Watson became one of the biggest movie stars on the planet by playing a bookworm fighting the most evil wizard in history, so needless to say, before Beauty and the Beast, she had never sung in a movie before. 'I think people will be interested to see me do something very different like that,' Watson told Total Film in 2015, via Vanity Fair, about making her musical debut. 'It gives me a different challenge, really. That's terrifying in and of itself,' she added. By now, fans have already heard snippets of Watson singing in the film, and the verdict is in: the woman can really sing.
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It shouldn't shock fans to hear that Watson's singing passes the test. She might be a global superstar, but even she had to audition to become a real life Disney princess. And it's actually something Watson was grateful for. 'It gave me a sense of ownership. I would have hated to have felt I got the part undeservedly,' she said in that same interview with Total Film, via Just Jared. 'I had to prove I had the voice to do it.' Given the fact that she wasn't handed the role on a silver platter, is it any surprise that Watson actually holds her own sining 'Belle' and 'Something There'?
No doubt Watson's singing in Beauty and the Beast will spark many debates among fans. Did they use autotune? Yes, but not exclusively on Watson. This is a major Hollywood picture, so you can bet they used some amount of autotune on everyone. Watson might not be headed to Broadway any time soon, but her singing in Beauty and the Beast should be good enough to secure her a place in the Disney Hall Of Fame.
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Anyone who was concerned that the live action Beauty and the Beast movie would be a flop can stop worrying. The film notched the sixth-highest opening weekend of all-time by taking in over $174 in its first frame, and it's on pace to easily be Disney's most successful live action reboot yet. The film's success owes a lot to its impressive cast, especially Dan Stevens and Emma Watson, who sing and dance their way through the spectacle. But how much of it was real and how much was movie magic? Can Dan Stevens really sing?
Despite his face as the Beast being computer generated and performed through motion capture, that really is Stevens' voice you hear belting out the movie's famous tunes. The actor apparently had done a bit of singing in his youth, but it had been a long time since he had actually sung when the time came to train his voice for the film. 'Singing was a relatively new thing to me,' the 34-year-old told People. 'I’d sung at school and when I was younger, but in my 20s I [hadn’t] sung as extensively so reengaging my voice, retraining the voice, was a big challenge.' Check out Stevens in action below, singing alongside Watson (who also sang for real) in a scene from the film. Little snitch key 4.0.3.
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If you recall in the animated version, the Beast doesn't really sing much and has no songs where he is the main performer. But the movie changed that, adding an original tune for him to sing called 'Evermore.' And to prepare for his big moment, the actor had to train extensively. 'I’ve been working quite closely with a brilliant woman from the Royal Academy of Music, Ann-Marie Speed, who’s just fantastic,' Stevens told EW's Clark Collis. 'Like a lot of the things I’ve been doing over the last few years, [it’s about] acquiring new skills, or challenging myself to do something I’ve never done before — in this case, challenging myself to do several things I’ve never done before. But it’s really good fun. It’s certainly interesting!'
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Emma Watson Not Auto Tuned For Sale
So yes, Stevens really did sing in Beauty and the Beast. He did not, however, actually transform into a giant hairy monster - but I bet he would have trained for it if that's what was required.