Interviews of Jennifer Lawrence
Meet Jennifer Lawrence - Your new crush
This interview originally appeared at: http://www.cineplex.com...
Written By: Andrea Miller on June 15, 2010
You’d be forgiven for doing a double-take when confronted with the leggy blonde who disappeared beneath tattered toques, heavy parkas and an impenetrable stone-face to play the female protagonist at the heart of the Ozark Mountain-set drama Winter’s Bone.
The 20-year-old Kentucky native who immersed herself in the role of Ree, a teenager forced to search for her meth-head dad after he put up the family home for bond, could not be more at odds with the character she so seamlessly played in Debra Granik’s Sundance hit.
In snakeskin heels, dark denim skinny jeans, lilac tank and cropped jacket, Jennifer Lawrence looks every bit the part of the pretty actress while chatting in a swanky Toronto hotel room but her open, self-deprecating nature shows this talented girl to be anything but your typical Hollywood babe.
A relative newbie with only six years of acting under her belt, Lawrence has made the most of her short time in the biz, appearing in guest spots on TV shows like “Monk,” “Medium” and “Cold Case” before starring alongside Charlize Theron in 2008’s The Burning Plain and going for broke in Winter’s Bone as a determined, fearless and unlikely heroine providing for her fractured family.
She recently spoke to Cineplex about her breakout role, revealed how hard it is to make friends in L.A. and what it was like meeting Jodie Foster.
CINEPLEX: Winter’s Bone won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and has since gone on to win major critical acclaim. Did you have any idea how big this movie would end up being? Do you have a sense of your life changing because of it?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: It’s changing my career, but it’s not changing my life. I am busier. I never thought it was going to be big but I knew it was going to be great. I loved the movie. I read it and then auditioned and then chased [the director] Debra to New York like a psycho. [Laughs] I knew I loved it; I never would have thought it would be this big. Ever.
CINEPLEX: In the movie, Ree is a renaissance woman; she hunts, chops wood, cooks and provides for her family and acts like more of a mother than a sister to her siblings. How did you prepare to play this character?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: I read the script. I wish that I had more interesting answers to that but I went out [to set] a week before and once I was immersed in the atmosphere of the Ozarks it was easy to pick up dialect and mannerisms and understand that world a little bit more. As far as the technical things, my cousin taught me how to shoot a gun and carry it around. And then I learned how to gut a squirrel and chop wood.
CINEPLEX: What was Debra like as director?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: She’s smart as hell and she has a great attention to detail. And she’s got such a different mindset than everyone else, which makes it hard to communicate sometimes because she’s on such a different playing field, but it makes such an interesting movie. Nobody else has a brain like her.
CINEPLEX: You co-star in Jodie Foster's new movie The Beaver. Were you nervous about meeting her?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: Our first meeting…of course, when somebody’s bigger than you are, you obviously picture them being really mean [laughs] so I pictured her yelling at me or something but she’s the sweetest woman. And she’s so smart and she’s such a good director. She’s obviously one of the most incredible actors in the world but her gift is directing. It was amazing, I love Jodie. I thinks she’s brilliant as well – she’s got the mind of five men. She’s just so fast and she’s so normal. She’s just a mom.
CINEPLEX: The New York Times Magazine chose you as one of their "Nifty 50," a showcase of up-and-coming talent…
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: God, I was such an a-hole in that interview! I read that interview and was like, ‘What? No! Did I say that?’ Sarcasm doesn’t come across in print. I sounded like such an a-hole. My friend read it and was like, ‘Jen!’ and I was like, ‘I know. I hate me.’ It’s not representative of me. And I said those words, I must have - they're quotes. I don't know what I meant!
CINEPLEX: So I imagine then, if you have people around you who are that honest, that you have friends from home while maybe making some new ones along the way...
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: It’s taken me years to make the friends I have in L.A. now. It took me awhile cause I don’t really have any friends in the business. And, yeah, it’s hard to meet people in L.A. It’s bizarre. I lived in New York first and I met plenty of friends and if we didn’t like each other, we just said that or didn’t call each other back. I’ve never experienced the, ‘We’re best friends!’ and then not anymore. It's really different, it's just odd. I realized I can’t be friends with actresses. Naturally, if we both audition for the same thing or I book it or she books it, there’s obviously going to be some jealousy. And I think it has to do with me having brothers, but I’ve never really gotten jealous. But I’ve got good friends now.
CINEPLEX: And what about the sexy photo shoot you did with Esquire? I was surprised to see pictures of you in a bathing suit after being so covered up in Winter’s Bone.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: I knew that this movie was coming out and based on the reviews, we thought this was going to be [my] biggest movie yet and it’s not like anybody had anything else to compare it to and my other two movies were the same. I wasn’t, you know, pretty in those movies. So before I was type-cast and wasn’t able to do any studio films, at all, we wanted to get something out there.
CINEPLEX: Since you've been acting from about the age of 14, do you think you're missing out on your formative years and typical teenage experiences?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: I would have been missing something if I would have turned this down and gone back to school in Kentucky. I don’t really think that I’ve had an odd…well, I guess it’s not common. It’s pretty normal to me and my family. It’s just kind of like what’s become our normal. I wouldn’t have worked there as well as I work here. I’m doing what I was made to do. I honestly don’t think I was made to do anything else. I definitely wasn’t made to sit behind a desk.
CINEPLEX: So your next project is a movie called Like Crazy and it's all improvised. How does that work?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: We have the script, the whole story is there and we know the objective of each scene. It’s a tragic love story but it’s funny. [Actor] Anton [Yelchin] and I can’t be serious around each other – we’ve tried but it doesn’t work. I don’t have experience in [improv], but I figure we talk like that everyday. I've always thought improv was really easy. It sucks when you're improving with somebody who isn't good, then it's hard. But I’m really excited for that one.
