The Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence recently went through a modern rite of passage for celebrities: eating a whole bunch of terrifyingly spicy chicken wings while being interviewed by Sean Evans on the popular YouTube talk show Hot Ones. As often happens when someone is under the intense pressure of capsaicin flooding their nervous system, the Silver Linings Playbook star revealed some surprising things during the interview.
Most notably, Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she is terrified by actors who use the controversial “Method” acting technique, such as her American Hustle (2013) co-star Christian Bale.
Jennifer Lawrence told host Sean Evans that “I would be scared to work with somebody who’s method because I would have no idea how to talk to them. Like, do I have to be in character?” On one hand, that seems fair enough, considering the legendary stories of actors like three-time Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis and Jared Leto getting so far into character that they cause physical damage to themselves through dedication to Method acting.
On the other hand, a lot of Method acting can seem pretty silly and has often been accused of being an actorly affection or even actively irritating. Infamously, X-Men star Brian Cox recently had direct words regarding his Succession co-star Jeremy Strong’s notoriously dedicated technique, saying “Oh, it’s f***ing annoying. Don’t get me going on it.”
However, while Jennifer Lawrence might be intimidated and/or freaked out by actors like Christian Bale and her Don’t Look Up (2021) c0-star Leonardo DiCaprio, it also seems she is intrigued by the process. “I had always been very on/off, on/off, until I did American Hustle when I worked with Christian Bale and I noticed when the camera started rolling and the crew kind of started preparing like it was going to be 10 seconds or whatever until action, he would start getting ready,” Lawrence said. “And then I saw that and I was like, ‘That seems like a really good idea.’ And then I started to do that.”
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To be honest, that kind of just sounds like regular acting, in the sense that Christian Bale was presumably getting ready to pretend to be a different person and say scripted lines while a camera was rolling, but if it helps Jennifer Lawrence, it’s all fine by us.
Currently, Jennifer Lawrence is starring in No Hard Feelings, a raunchy comedy directed Gene Stupnitsky. In the film, Lawrence plays a broke Uber driver who responds to a Craigslist ad to “date” a sheltered young man (Andrew Barth Feldman) to basically give him some life experience. The film also stars Matthew Broderick and Natalie Morales.
No Hard Feelings appears to be a deliberate left turn from Jennifer Lawrence, who is most famous for portraying Katniss Everdeen in the popular YA sci-fi Hunger Games franchise and winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook. While Lawrence has previously made more risque films like the spy thriller Red Sparrow (2018) and the controversial Darren Aronofsky film Mother! (2017), she has not previously starred in a full-on ribald comedy. Hopefully, she didn’t go full Method herself for this one.
