Cameron Diaz has confessed she broke down in tears at the prospect of singing in the Annie remake.

The actress plays Miss Hannigan in the musical reboot – which sees Quvenzhane Wallis playing the titular orphan and Jamie Foxx as the Daddy Warbucks-style character – and admitted thinking about belting out the comedy villain’s musical numbers had her welling up in terror.

A picture of Cameron Diaz in Annie
Cameron Diaz shows off her vocal chops in Annie (Sony Pictures/Barry Wetcher/PA)

“I cried,” said Cameron, whose first experience of singing on screen came in a deliberately tone-deaf karaoke scene in 1997′s My Best Friend’s Wedding.

“In my defence, I had just done a movie in the Bahamas, working at night, flew home that morning, didn’t sleep, and went into singing that very first afternoon. I was emotionally tapped, you know?”

The actress laughed that the second time she cried about having to flex her vocal cords for the film “there was no excuse – other than I was completely terrified”.

However, the 42-year-old eventually conquered her fears: “I knew that they were going to surround me with the best professionals and teachers, and they did. They helped me to deliver a performance that was worthy of an autotune, so that was great!”

A picture showing a scene from Annie
Cameron Diaz eventually got over her fears about singing (Sony Pictures/Barry Wetcher/PA)

And Cameron said other than that she relished the chance to play the booze-swigging character in the reboot of the 1982 movie.

“It’s a wonderful, delicious role to play,” she said. “You get to be this over the top villain while also making kids laugh, because you’re more ridiculous than scary.

“Miss Hannigan is like the Wicked Stepmother or Captain Hook – even tiny kids get it – you want to see the hero kid beat the bad guy grown-up.”

Annie is in cinemas now.