Barbra Streisand recruits Anne Hathaway and Daisy Ridley for At the Ballet

Barbra Streisand has hit the studio with actresses Anne Hathaway and Daisy Ridley to record a song from the musical A Chorus Line.

The Funny Girl icon has been recruiting fellow entertainers to tackle musical theater favorites for her upcoming album, Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, and her latest collaboration features new mom Anne and Star Wars: The Force Awakens actress Daisy.

The three women take on At the Ballet, from composer Marvin Hamlisch's hit 1975 stage show, and video footage of the session, which is performed from three ballet dancers' points of view, was released on Vevo.com on Friday (10Jun16).

"I wanted to work with some women on this album, and I thought, 'Well, give them a little character, have them act (out) scenes,'" Streisand explains. "So, I have to have good actresses who can sing."

In the behind-the-scenes clip, recorded inside Streisand's Malibu, California home studio, she claims she knew Hathaway, who was heavily pregnant at the time, would be "perfect casting" for the role of Maggie, after showing off her vocal skills in the 2012 movie adaptation of Les Miserables, for which she won an Oscar.

"When Anne came into the studio, I was so happy to see her looking radiant and glowing - no make-up, with the beauty of a woman about to give birth to a child," she says.

However, Barbra confesses she was a little hesitant when it came to Daisy as she had yet to hear the British actress sing, despite sitting down with the 24-year-old to discuss her possible involvement in her long-awaited movie adaptation of the musical Gypsy.

Streisand recalls, "I was interviewing Daisy Ridley for Gypsy, and I said, 'Can you sing?'. And she said, 'Yeah, I can sing.' I didn't know whether that was supposed to be like me in Funny Girl, when he says, 'Can you skate?' and I go, 'Of course I can skate!' and then the next minute she's falling all over the place because of course she can't skate!"

Instead, Barbra was pleasantly surprised to find Daisy was telling the truth, and the Star Wars star is still pinching herself at the unique recording opportunity.

"I have had no experience recording," she comments. "So, to have my first recording experience with Barbra Streisand is pretty insane. Not only am I working with two Oscar-winning actresses, both of those actresses won Oscars for musical films, so, slightly daunting."

At the Ballet will feature on Streisand's 39th album, which will also include an unlikely duet with Jamie Foxx, on The Sound of Music classic Climb E'ry Mountain, and a collaboration with Hugh Jackman on Any Moment Now from Into the Woods.