THE BEARDED LADY WHO BROUGHT THE HOUSE DOWN

OVERWEIGHT, virtually unknown and over 40: Keala Settle (pictured) could hardly be less ‘Hollywood’. But the actress proved the unexpected star draw of the film as bearded lady Lettie Lutz, who Barnum plucks from her job at the laundry service and propels onto his circus stage.

Settle, 42, a theatre actress who had only had two small screen roles prior to The Greatest Showman, had a cast of her head made to help the film’s make-up team create a convincing beard and extensively researched polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a condition that can cause prominent facial hair in women, to help her get into character. Her spine-tingling rendition of This Is Me, the soundtrack’s stand out ballad about selfacceptance, was nominated for an Oscar, and she performed the song to a standing ovation at this year’s ceremony. Self-deprecating Settle, who has a British father, says that she was ‘successfully hiding from the world on Broadway’ and only offered to sing at the film’s read-through as a stand-in to help her pay rent. Having brought the entire cast and crew to tears with her performance, she was eventually bribed by Hugh Jackman to take the part with a bottle of whisky, admitting: ‘I’m very cheap that way.’