Quvenzhane Wallis praises Cameron Diaz's motherly skills

The 11-year-old actress plays the orphan while Cameron portrays bitter foster mother Colleen Hannigan in Will Gluck’s remake of the musical.

“Her character was very scary, but her, in general, she was very nice. She was like a mother to me,” the young star said.

“It was really awesome because we filmed in New York and it was really cold. We had hand warmers, scarves and jackets and she would tell me to wrap up. ‘Wrap your jacket, wrap your scarf (around) one more time, and here’s a hand warmer’.”

The pair bonded over scavenger hunts before shooting began, but Quvenzhane admitted Cameron would instantly switch back into character as soon as the cameras started rolling.

“When Will Gluck said ‘Action’, she would change and I would be like, ‘I thought you gave me your hand warmer’,” she continued. “It was really fun and I would just laugh, and you might see a smirk on my face if you watch it close enough.”

The Beasts Of The Southern Wild star revealed she was a fan of the original 1982 film.

She joked: “When I heard they were doing auditions, I watched it goodness knows how many, like a hundred million times.”

Will said he had a blast filming the big musical scenes, especially Tomorrow.

“My favourite scene is when she sang Tomorrow. It was for two full days and she walked two streets in Harlem, singing and blasting out Tomorrow. By the end of the second day, the people in the streets were like, ‘Enough, enough! We’ve had it for two days’,” he remembered.

“But it’s fun. We had a lot of fun. Everyone knows these songs – they’re great and emotional songs – and it’s just so fun to bring them to a new generation.”

:: Annie is in cinemas now.