“I can’t sing,” Lively tells Collider, when asked about the process of perfecting (or not perfecting) her singing voice. “I know I can’t sing.”

Despite this, though, the actor threw herself into her performance and shrugged off any auto-tune suggestions: her emotional connection to the movie, she says, outweighed the need to actually hit the notes.

“That’s my identity,” she explains. “I love singing more than anything in the whole world. I’m like, ‘Hi, nice to meet you. I can’t sing to save my life.’

“I sang in this movie… it’s not great. But the thing is, it doesn’t matter, because this character’s not a singer. She’s singing at a kids’ recital. And actually Babyface was the person who was coaching me cause we were at his recording studio… so cool.”

Lively adds: “It’s not perfect, but it was real.”

The soundtrack for the film was released quietly at the end of October, which means that the Gossip Girl star’s efforts are now available to listen to online.

The first, In Our Dreams, is a simple and melancholy love song:

Blake Lively goes from actor to pop star as she releases two new songs