The moment Jennifer Lawrence realised she was a big deal: “We would always be friends”
Very few people knew who Jennifer Lawrence was when Winter’s Bone came out 14 years ago. Even afterwards, she didn’t exactly become an overnight star, as the film was only a modest success at the box office anyway, despite the fact that it (almost) earned her an Oscar. A string of successful projects soon followed, but it’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when she captured mainstream attention.
Winter’s Bone was undoubtedly a great introduction to her talents, though. The film follows Lawrence as Ree, a citizen of Missouri’s rural Ozarks. Quite a bleak place and shot as though it never had a sunny day (if you’ve ever been to Missouri, this is not the case), and Lawrence’s character is a teenage girl searching for her father who was caught up in a mare’s nest over methamphetamine, corrupt police and everything you’d expect from a 21st century Southern Gothic.
The movie was very well received, earning praise from every critic with a column (and many without) and, as stated, got Lawrence an Oscar nod, winning several less distinguished awards in the process. Just two years later, she struck gold with Silver Linings Playbook, winning ‘Best Actress’ and cementing her position in the industry.
She did a bunch of X-Men movies with diminishing enthusiasm as time went on, and her contract became a carbuncle attached to her heel. There’s the Hunger Games franchise, which she starred in at the behest of her mother, who said she’d be a “hypocrite” for turning it down. She’d play the protagonist Katniss Everdeen across four films and X-Men’s Mystique in more films than she’d care to admit.
Whatever the point of genesis for Lawrence’s fame, most people know who she is. One of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood, she has a staple of scripted anecdotes delivered on late-night talk shows and is often the subject of ruthless media scrutiny. But to her credit, it’s kept afloat by a contingent of impressive performances.
When did Jennifer Lawrence herself first realise she was a big deal? Talking to Time, she said, “When Paul Rudd told me that he thought we would always be friends.” Adding, “When people look back and wonder what happened when she changed when it all got destroyed, it will be right here at this moment because I have always looked at Paul Rudd and thought we would be friends.”
How and when Lawrence and Rudd met and how they became friends is left unclear. But acknowledgement from someone you admire and seeing them as a peer rather than an idol will make anyone start to believe in themselves. And Paul Rudd seems like a nice enough guy (by Hollywood standards, anyway), so you could have worse friends on speed dial. Whatever the case, Jennifer Lawrence can now go on Jimmy Kimmel whenever she wants.
It’s the power of friendship that made Lawrence realise she was a star, and now things have almost come full circle as Rudd is set to star in a project literally titled Friendship opposite the menacingly hilarious Tim Robinson.
