Jennifer Lawrence
On popularity and privacy
LONDON – Wearing a brown long-sleeved paisley dress and donning a cute chinlength bob, Jennifer Lawrence was blooming despite feeling under the weather the night before.
The 24- year- old actress from Kentucky, who achieved superstardom when she played Katniss Everdeen in the “The Hunger Games” film series, talked about the latest installment of the franchise, “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.”
Touching on the theme of rebellion, we asked her if she feels the need to let her voice be heard. “There is so much unfairness and imbalance in the world that it’s hard not to feel that, being aware of what’s going on in our own countries and around the world,” she said. “In my own personal life, the hard part that comes with this job is losing a lot of your privacy and control over things that, just out of human decency, you should have control over.”
From playing a rebel, she said she learned “how important it is to have a voice and to stand up for what’s right, even when it’s difficult, even when it’s scary and not to take the easy way out.”
She admitted that she feels pressure being a role model. “Young women do come see these movies but so do young men,” she said. “But I also feel it’s important for all women to support each other… Women have a history of being meaner to our own race, and men are drawn on sex. So, yes, I do feel that pressure but I also feel it with everybody. I feel all the pressure, all the time…”
For her, it is something “you just have to live with…” She noted, “I just make sure I don’t disappoint myself, because I feel pressure that so many young people are looking up to me...”
She does not dispute the fact that there are “wonderful things” and “difficult parts… (things) that I feel like I have to give up” that come with her job, so she can “connect with the feeling of a struggle of give-and-take.” Relating it to her Katniss character, she said, “(I) understand the fight that has to be done. I love my job, but there are difficulties that come with it.”
Celebrated in Hollywood for being genuine and unaffected, she admitted, “Sometimes, it’s frustrating because there can be so much backlash for just saying something silly. Then it’s just confusing because everybody is like, ‘Don’t change.’ But…I can understand why it is difficult not to change because the entire world around you changes.”
Being one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and an awardwinning one at that, she does deal with fame on a massive scale. “I don’t think it would do much good for my psyche to absorb that kind of information,” she said. “I just love acting. I love my job so I just show up to work and I film movies. I don’t absorb any of that stuff because I don’t think it would be good for me. I’m incapable of it. That’s very flattering, though.”
She insisted that having perspective keeps her grounded and unaffected. “I didn’t grow up in this business. I didn’t even grow up in LA. I grew up in Kentucky and I didn’t become successful until a few years ago. So I’m very aware of what the real world is…”