“That’s my worst nightmare”: the only actor Jennifer Lawrence was terrified of annoying
The exciting thing about becoming an actor is getting to work with other stars you’ve grown up greatly admiring, something that, on paper, seems like an actual dream, but when it boils down to it, you may suddenly be facing someone you’ve always seen onscreen and can’t quite comprehend as a real person, which is what happened to Jennifer Lawrence.
One would think nothing can faze her, being just 22 when she won an Academy Award for her role in Silver Linings Playbook, which made her one of the youngest in the category ever to win the honour, and paired with her role as Katniss Everdeen in the global phenomenon The Hunger Games, she quickly became one of the most successful and popular actors of her generation.
If anything, others should find themselves more intimidated by the kind of success she has managed to garner in such a short time, and yet, you certainly can’t help but feel like a bit of an imposter when you rise to fame that fast, and for Lawrence, the chance to work alongside one of her biggest idols, a veteran of the game, filled her with fear.
In Adam McKay’s 2021 satire Don’t Look Up, she shared the screen with Meryl Streep, with the former playing a doctoral candidate specialising in astronomy, and the latter played the president of the United States, where, even while performing alongside a stacked roster of names, which included Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, and even Ariana Grande, it was the three-time Oscar winner with the record of the actor with the most nominations, at an impressive 21, that she was most nervous about working with.
Lawrence revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that she vowed to say as little as possible to Streep so as not to embarrass herself or irritate her. “My biggest concern was, I did not want to annoy Meryl Streep. That’s my worst nightmare. So, I will only speak if spoken to, and I will be the least annoying person in the room,” she said.
McKay echoed this, revealing how scared she was to work alongside one of the most terrific actors of all time. “She just kept saying, ‘I’m going to be quiet. I won’t speak’. Meryl Streep shows up, and Jen comes over to me like she’s a 12-year-old and is like, ‘What do I say? What do I do?’”
Of course, the amiable Lawrence soon eased up and got on well with the icon, with the actor joking, “And now I would say she’s my best friend”.
Clearly, the saying ‘never meet your heroes’ doesn’t always apply, because on the set of Don’t Look Up, Lawrence was able to work with one of her biggest influences and also look at house listings with her when the cameras stopped rolling.
She came to realise that Streep isn’t this unmovable figure who sees herself as better than everyone else; the actor is just a normal person who happens to be great at her job.
