“My life would’ve been totally different”: When Jennifer Lawrence was instantly rejected from ‘Twlight’
It hasn’t been an easy journey to the top, but Jennifer Lawrence is now a huge presence in the film world. After years of totally unjustified scrutiny from the press, she has struck a nice balance between pursuing box office success with the likes of No Hard Feelings and the ‘X-Men’ prequel series and more artistic ventures like Darren Aronofsky’s mother! She is still the second-youngest ‘Best Actress’ winner in Oscars history for Silver Linings Playbook and, following a brief hiatus from acting in the 2010s, has returned to the business with a renewed vigour and resurgence in popularity.
Of course, what most people will remember J-Law from is her role as Katniss Everdeen in ‘The Hunger Games’ movies. The series capitalised hugely off the void left by the end of ‘Harry Potter’, grossing millions of dollars worldwide and amassing millions of fans, regardless of whether or not they had read the original books. Though X-Men: First Class came out first, it’s the first ‘Hunger Games’ movie that really made Lawrence a star. However, in an alternative universe, she had already found fame as the lead in another young adult franchise.
“I auditioned for Twilight,” Lawrence told The Hollywood Reporter, explaining that her attempt to join the series fell flat on its face. “They turned me down immediately. I didn’t even get a callback… When you audition when you’re a run-of-the-mill actor… you just get five pages and they’re like, ‘Act monkey’. When it came out, I was like, ‘Hot damn’.”
The first of the five Twilight films, adapted from Stephanie Meyer’s books of the same name, released in 2008 and memorably combined Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson as a pale teenager and her undead, 108-year-old boyfriend. As mocked as the movies were at the time, they most certainly found their audience. For many people of a certain age, going to see the new Twilight in the cinema was akin to a religious experience, regardless of their actual quality. The series enjoys a slightly better critical view these days and both Stewart and Pattinson have gone on to do a lot of really interesting stuff off the back of them.
Lawrence never elaborated on which part she went up for. She’s only a few months younger than Stewart, so she could have been in the running for Bella Swann, but she could have easily been auditioning for Alice Cullen, another vampire who was played by Ashley Greene, or even Bella’s friend Jessica, a character that gave Anna Kendrick one of her first movie jobs.
She might not have made it as a vampire, but with the power of hindsight, Lawrence isn’t that bothered about losing out on Twilight. “My life would’ve been totally different,” she said (via The Digital Fix). “I got Hunger Games I think, like, a year later.” Once she’d been cast as Katniss, her path was set and, in all honesty, she was a much better fit for that role than she was for anything in the other series.
All of this just goes to show that it isn’t the end of the world to miss out on one thing. Part of being an actor is facing rejection and then moving on to the next job; that’s what Jennifer Lawrence did, and it made her a star.
