Jennifer Lawrence is taking a tragedy and using it to empower herself.
During Monday night’s New York premiere of her new movie Red Sparrow, Jennifer Lawrence says she felt empowered by the nude scenes int he movie, especially following the 2014 nude photo hack, which left her feeling insecure.
“The insecurity and fear of being judged for getting nude, what I went through, should that dictate decisions I make for the rest of my life? This movie changed that and I didn’t even realize how important changing that mentality was until it was done,” she said at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. “But I also really challenged myself in ways that I never really had before. The foreign accent. The dancing. It was really taking on a very different leaf.”
Lawrence said she was mentally prepared for the movie because director Francis Lawrence warned her ahead of time.
“We talked about it extensively, which was really important for showing up on the day and there being no surprises,” Jennifer Lawrence said. “I knew exactly what was going on and also there was one moment he came out to give me a note and just looked at me like I had clothes, and then I just felt like I had clothes on. I was surrounded by professionals, and everybody was completely professional.”
Francis Lawrence said he gave Lawrence her artistic freedom. She was “the first person to see the movie as a whole with those scenes to be able to say ‘I’m with it’ or ‘we need to talk and make some changes.’ And she was totally with it. She didn’t have me pull anything.”
“Look, I wasn’t sure she was going to want to do the movie. And I pitched her the idea in general, but I didn’t tell her much about the content,” Francis Lawrence said. “She liked the idea of the character in general, and I sort of filled her in a little bit along the way, but I wanted her to wait for the script. She thought about it, because clearly, she knew what the content was going to be. And as soon as she said, ‘I want to do it,’ I said, ‘OK, I’m coming over to your house, and we’re having a really frank conversation.’”
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