Darren Aronofsky on working with the “impressive” Jennifer Lawrence
Darren Aronofsky is one of the most exciting filmmakers of the contemporary era. He has created a string of thought-provoking and challenging titles, including Pi and Requiem for a Dream, that are so profound that they leave an indelible mark on the viewer. His works are arcane, containing many different layers, much like the man himself, and in 2017 he reached new heights when he released the unsettling psychological allegory Mother!, which is his most controversial to date.
Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, Mother! is a metafictional allegory regarding the rapid destruction of ecological systems around the planet. Notably, the graphic violence in the film angered many, and it was so contentious that some climate change deniers even took it upon themselves to protest that Aronofsky’s film was “propaganda”.
“We were nervous about how controversial it was going to be, but then when you release a movie to the world, and there’s so many angry people, you start to wonder, ‘Hold on, what did I do?'” Aronofsky told Variety in 2021. “I get some of the best hate mail ever, which is great”.
While there are fair criticisms that can be fired at Mother!, the performance of Jennifer Lawrence is laudable, with it ranking amongst her very best. In 2017, Aronofsky sat down with the NME and shed some light on what it was like working with her. He revealed that much of her skill stems from her position as an autodidact.
Asked whether he always had Jennifer Lawrence in mind when conceiving the titular matriarch, Aronofsky said: “I actually wasn’t thinking about Jennifer at all because I didn’t think she’d be interested. I was focused on trying to capture the spirit and the energy of the character”.
He continued: “After we did cast Jennifer, we started to think about who could play against her in this older, commanding male role. Originally it was going to be a guy in a wheelchair, that’s how old this guy was gonna be. But that wasn’t very sexy so I had to figure out something else. Then Javier [Bardem] became a possibility and that was really exciting”.
The director then proceeded to explain just how brilliant Jennifer Lawrence is and what she brought to the film, going as far as to describe her as “impressive”.
“She’s an autodidact, which means someone who is self-taught. No one ever taught her how to act, and yet, not only is she an incredible emotional actress, but she’s a technical actor as well, which is very important in filmmaking because you have to know where the lights are. In this film in particular she is dancing with the camera the whole time. So that’s really impressive about her”, he said.
The director concluded: “She also puts an endless amount of energy and consideration into everything that she does. This film is two hours long. 66 minutes of it is a close-up of her face. Yet it’s not boring. That’s down to Jen’s performance”.
