Hugh Jackman, who has the role of Jean Valjean in the upcoming Les Misérables film, spoke in a recent interview about a brand new song in the musical written specifically for him.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Jackman was really excited by the opportunity. “It’s kind of an amazing honour they came to see the show and I was singing for 2 1/2 hours so they saw every possible colour of my voice and they said ‘right, now we’re going to write it for you.'”

The song is about Jean’s first meeting with Cossette (played by Amanda Seyfriend) where he promises to take care of her after rescuing her from an abusive foster family. “Meeting Cossette is the first time he’s ever experienced love,” he said. “It’s the most beautiful passage, because he says he never knew the love of a mother, a father, of brothers or sisters and vice versa, never loved anyone. So he meets this little girl who’s in his care, he experiences this flood of emotion that for a 50-year-old man has never occurred. It’s a pretty amazing invention of Victor Hugo and it’s never really been dealt with in the stage musical.”

The song was written by the original Les Misérables musical lyricist Alain Boublil and composer Claude-Michel Schonberg. It is tailored to Jackman’s voice.

In September, a Les Misérables featurette took an extensive look at how the film requires the entire cast to sing every song of every scene 100% live. A pianist backstage plays with them in a hidden ear piece as they film their scenes.

Les Misérables will be released December 25.