Rebecca Ferguson played opera singer Jenny Lind in The Greatest Showman, surprising viewers with the number “Never Enough”, but that wasn’t her singing – here’s who it really was and why. Musical films have always been popular, more so when they feature well-known actors who may or may not have musical backgrounds. The Greatest Showman was a mix of both, with Hugh Jackman on the lead (who is no stranger to musicals), Zac Efron, and Zendaya, and others who aren't exactly known for taking part in musical projects, such as Michelle Williams and Rebecca Ferguson.
The Greatest Showman tells the story of P.T. Barnum (Jackman), creator of Barnum’s American Museum, and who becomes a worldwide sensation in the show business thanks to his imagination and innovative ideas, even if he wasn’t always fully honest. During a trip to meet Queen Victoria, Barnum meets Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, and after attending her performance, he convinces her to perform in America with him as her manager. Lind falls for Barnum, who rejects her advances, prompting her to end their professional relationship. Lind has a big musical number called “Never Enough”, which became a big hit thanks to Lind’s powerful voice – and contrary to what many might think, it wasn’t Ferguson who did the singing.
Although Rebecca Ferguson has a musical background, having studied various types of dance and attended the Adolf Fredrik’s Music School, she wasn’t fully confident she could pull off the singing voice for a character like Lind. Ferguson hasn’t been shy about it, openly saying that if she messed it up she would have been quite embarrassed, so she had no problem in someone else doing the singing. The voice in “Never Enough”, then, is that of Loren Allred, known for being on Adam Levine’s team in The Voice US season 3. Allred has also spoken about her experience working in The Greatest Showman, telling DeseretNews that her collaboration with Ferguson was “a perfect match”, as “no one could have played that role as well as Rebecca did”.
Loren Allred comes from a family of musicians, and her big break came in 2012 when she joined The Voice season 3 and selected Adam Levine as her coach. After that, she became a member of the recording ensemble for a musical film developed by Benji Pasek and Justin Paul, and after working on a couple of demos, she was chosen as the singing voice of Rebbeca Ferguson in The Greatest Showman. “Never Enough” went viral (along with other songs), with the film's soundtrack going platinum and topping the Billboard albums chart in January 2018, thus marking Allred’s Billboard debut.
It’s not uncommon for musical films to use different actors to do the singing voices (a popular example is Zac Efron in the first High School Musical film, though he later worked on that and was able to do his own singing in the subsequent films and in The Greatest Showman), as not all have been musically trained, don’t have the skills, or simply aren’t confident they can pull it off. Rebecca Ferguson has been quite honest about it and praised Loren Allred’s work, which speaks volumes about her and Allred as well.
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