‘Twilight’, fanfiction, and Lynne Ramsay: Jennifer Lawrence’s perfectly rational fear
It didn’t take Jennifer Lawrence long to find success in Hollywood, earning her first Academy Award nomination when she was just 20 for her performance in Winter’s Bone, and within two years, bagging the lead in the biggest teen franchise with The Hunger Games, scoring a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and even winning an Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook.
She was now a star, but the fact that she won an Academy Award the same year she’d become a teen icon prevented her from succumbing to that all-too-common curse, never taken any less seriously, and was thus able to take on considerably more mature parts at the same time, such as American Hustle. She’s done everything from psychological horror like mother! to erotically-charged spy thrillers like Red Sparrow, proving her diversity as a star.
Yet, in spite of this widespread acclaim that she has achieved in Hollywood, to many younger audiences who grew up with Lawrence playing Katniss Everdeen, that’s always who she’ll be, above any other character. So, she was naturally quite worried when she signed onto a project that would see her appear alongside another former teen movie idol, Robert Pattinson.
While Pattison rose to prominence as Edward Cullen in 2008’s Twilight, he continued to play the character across its various sequels until 2012’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, and The Hunger Games, in a way, was the next big franchise for young people following the end of the vampire saga, similarly concerned with a dark vision of the world.
So, when the two teen heartthrobs were cast alongside each other in Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love, a psychological drama, Lawrence was worried that certain fans would misinterpret just how heavy the movie really is and was worried that impressionable fans would think it was essentially Katniss and Edward fanfiction.
“My biggest fear is that people are expecting fanfic because it’s me and Rob,” she told W magazine, “Huge mistake to go into this movie with that expectation. Everybody, pump your brakes and maybe watch a Lynne Ramsay movie before going in.”
Known for movies like the spectacular Morvern Callar and the moving We Need to Talk about Kevin, Ramsay’s work frequently turns to themes of death, loneliness, and womanhood, and while there’s nothing remotely fanfic-esque about Die My Love, Lawrence knows how crazy and dedicated YA lovers can be, and she really didn’t want them getting the wrong impression.
Lawrence emphasised her worries during another interview, too, this time with Jimmy Fallon, where she told him, “It’s great, but if you’re expecting fanfic, you’re going to be really disappointed. I’m just afraid it’s going to come out, and everybody’s gonna be mad at me”.
Luckily, Lawrence didn’t need to worry in the end, for she earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance, and while the reaction to the film was pretty polarising, that was down to its intensity, not the misconception that this would be some perverse Twilight meets The Hunger Games spin-off.
