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In our multi-hyphenated world, we have grown accustomed to pop stars crossing over to the silver screen in search of new challenges—and maybe even that elusive diva status. Lady Gaga did it. Whitney Houston did it. And so did David Bowie. The switch from actor to musician, however, comes with its own set of challenges; though the music eventually finds a niche audience and more often than not cult-status, mainstream success, and the awards that often accompany, can remain just out of reach.

Except maybe if you are Anne Hathaway. The actress, inarguably one of the greatest of her generation, is currently starring as Mother Mary in the David Lowery film of the same name, as a pop star on the eve of her comeback with everything to lose. And because you cannot be a pop star without some bops, Lowery recruited thee pop music architects of our time, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX (who is coincidentally on her own pop star-to-actor pivot), to write Mother Mary’s music for the film. The seven songs, released as an album titled Mother Mary: Greatest Hits, and released on streaming platforms (and molten gold-and-blood colored vinyl on the A24 website, of course); are dark club jams with spiritual-themed lyrics that toe the line between the sacred and the profane. It is impossible to differentiate these songs with songs by a “real artist,” because, well, they were written by real artists. (FKA Twigs, another musician who recently pivoted to actor, also contributed “My Mouth is Lonely for You,” one of the songs that didn’t make it into her latest album Eusexua, for the film.)

And despite the fact that she told Harper’s Bazaar a few months ago, Hathaway decided at a young age that she’d never grow up to be a pop star, she sings on every song on the record (where she’s also credited as the artist), and she sounds good!

“I just remember having that conversation with myself and being like, ‘Okay, well, I don’t think you’ll ever be a dancer, and your singing’s fine, but I don’t know that you’re ever going to be a star vocalist.’ So, I ruled out ‘pop star’ pretty early,” she shared. But the thing that makes Hathaway Hathaway is her commitment to the role. So she trained and trained and trained and met with Antonoff to find her “pop star vibe,” and in the process she had to unlearn the type A, locked-in mentality that has driven her to the top of her craft.

“I’d never considered vibe-based art before, you know?,” she told The New York Times this week. “For me, movie making comes from a very, very different place and acting comes from very different place. To my horror and dismay, I realized I had no idea how to sing into a microphone because all of my training was onstage, where there’s so much projection involved. Pop music is the opposite. It’s effortless power, which is not really my thing. I’m, like, all about effort.”

But another thing that surely helped her pull off her pop star turn is her own personal influences; during a recent press junket to promote the movie, Hathaway revealed her “Mount Rushmore” of pop divas as follows: “Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, Björk, and Beyoncé.” That means an intrinsic understanding and appreciation of theatricality, vulnerability, experimentation, a desire for perfection. How could she not nail her Mother Mary performances? (The Tori influence can be particularly felt during “Holy Spirit 2.”)

The question is, will The Recording Academy recognize Hathaway’s hard work and reward her with a Grammy nomination, after she was shockingly snubbed for her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” as Fantine in 2012’s Les Misérables? The actress won an Academy Award for that very same role, and has an Emmy thanks to a cameo appearance in an episode of The Simpsons, a Grammy now would almost certainly guarantee she reaches the coveted EGOT status (it’s not difficult to imagine her taking a break from films to do theater for a while and earning a Tony award for it sometime in the future, after all she began her career in theater.) In the meantime, you’ve got some tracks to vibe with.

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