The “dream” role Jennifer Lawrence always wanted to emulate: “A huge influence”
There was a period when people thought Jennifer Lawrence was no longer relevant in Hollywood circles.
It came after a surge of major titles and an internet frenzy that placed her at the top of online trending topics, and at this time, Lawrence was everything that fandoms yearn for: someone real, relatable, and with an entertaining comedic streak, she had range on screen, her characters were entirely believable, and in interviews, she was honest, witty, and down-to-earth.
However, then came a downfall she attracted through no fault of her own, when audiences decided it was time to turn against her, and suddenly, her humour was no longer charming but irritating, and her personality during promotional runs was no longer relatable but cringeworthy, and thus ensued a period of time when people decided it was time to move on.
It’s harsh, and happens often, especially to female actors who have to work twice as hard to remain on the audience’s ‘good’ side, whatever that means. But the fact was that Lawrence didn’t actually do anything wrong; she just became another victim of keyboard warriors who decided she no longer deserved her time in the spotlight.
Lawrence actually reflected on this recently, notably after Ariana Grande’s impersonation skit on SNL, which drew attention to all of those quirks and mannerisms that people once celebrated. Rather tragically, Lawrence said that she understood why she grated on people, calling her personality annoying and something that earned the surge of disdainful comments and opinions way back when.
Now, though, things have changed, and Lawrence is back to her rightful position as one of the biggest and most respected Hollywood names, since people pay more attention to her work and her thoughts and opinions than reducing her to simple memes, as they did then, and even when she shows her comedic side, it’s met with less criticism about her trying too hard.
Which means she now also has the floor to share things about herself that she never got the chance to before, like her hopes and aspirations as an actor, her influences, and all the pieces of material that shaped her approach to the art of acting, like last year, when Lawrence appeared in Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love, an incredibly charged movie depicting a woman’s spiral into postpartum psychosis.
Press around the movie revealed different aspects of Lawrence’s genius mind, like how she approached such a challenging role, and what her initial thoughts were when first coming into the project. In the process of discussing these points, she revealed the one role that was a “huge influence” on her.
“[It reminded me of] A Woman Under the Influence,” she told BFI. “That was a huge influence on my life and career. Any actress would say a role like that is the dream of a lifetime. I found the character, the ferocity and the wildness of her [Grace] so exciting. But it was confusing how to crack it, because the book is all the characters’ inner world; it’s poetry. Once that part clicked, I realised ‘Oh, this is not literal, this is an expression.'”
These are aspects that she brought to the role, especially as she also implied that the emotions and themes meant there was no room for being “performative”. Instead, she followed the poetry of feeling something so raw and let it inform how that came across on screen, rising to the challenge of becoming someone completely different.
