The movie Jennifer Lawrence instantly regretted making: “I was disappointed in myself”
Sometimes, a film‘s outcome can render an actor regretting their intense dedication to it, but there’s no point dwelling on it, because if you’re lucky enough, another great movie will be waiting right around the corner.
Jennifer Lawrence can attest to that, having appeared in some mega successes alongside movies that she would much rather redo if she were ever given the chance. The star’s rise to fame came quick once she started acting as a teenager, and by 2010, she’d secured herself an Oscar nomination for Winter’s Bone, which was soon followed by her first franchise role in X-Men: First Class, her skin painted blue as she stepped into the part of Mystique.
Her major breakthrough came with leading The Hunger Games series, which saw her play the defiant Katniss Everdeen, who rises against the dystopian government and leads a rebellion opposing their murderous and capitalistic ways. As is true of any actor starring in a young-adult franchise, suddenly Lawrence found herself everywhere, from varying merch to more starring roles.
Her career continued on a steady upward trajectory, winning her first Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook when she was just 22, making her one of the youngest winners. While it seemed like she could do no wrong with her choices, eventually, though, there came a moment when she realised that she had been a little too hasty picking a film, perhaps because her vision was slightly clouded by the enjoyment she got out of working with her co-star.
She told Vogue when reflecting on some of her past roles, “Chris Pratt is the funniest person in the entire world. I have my own personal feelings about how the film turned out, so I have mixed feelings about seeing that picture”.
In 2016, she was cast alongside Pratt in Passengers, a sci-fi romance which performed well at the box office, grossing over $300million, even though critical reviews were a little more mixed. In the film, Pratt’s character Jim, travelling on board a sleeper ship, wakes up before he’s meant to because of a malfunctioning hibernation pod, leading him to jolt another passenger, Lawrence’s Aurora, so that he doesn’t have to be alone.
Many audiences were critical of the narrative, suggesting that the plot should have been rejigged slightly to make for a more compelling watch with a more shocking plot twist, which is something Lawrence herself soon realised, too, and it’s one of the reasons that she has her regrets when it comes to the movie.
“I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t spot it,” she told Vogue in another interview, adding, “I thought the script was beautiful: it was this tainted, complicated love story. It definitely wasn’t a failure. I’m not embarrassed by it by any means. There was just stuff that I wished I’d looked into deeper before jumping on.”
It must be annoying when you realise that a film could’ve been better, and while Lawrence isn’t ashamed, she does regret not studying the script a little more before she committed to it. Passengers is still an enjoyable film if you’re into sci-fi romance, with its ethical dilemma adding an interesting dimension to the love story, but sadly, it’s not one the actor holds in super high regard as far as her filmography goes, which continues to stretch into whackier terrain.
