Jennifer Lawrence made a bold claim that there weren’t any female lead roles in action movies until she was cast to play Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games trilogy…
And the actress has received major backlash over it.
But now she’s responded to the criticisms …
Everyone knows Jennifer Lawrence for her versatility when it comes to acting.
We’ve seen her cracking Hollywood in full swing with the much-loved Hunger Games franchise or perhaps the movie Silver Linings Playbook back in 2012, which garnered quite a response from the box office.
Lawrence recently opened up about becoming a mother and the role of women in society.
But that’s not all, the stunning actress revealed the not-so-pretty hurdles she overcame and explained the changing landscape of women’s rights.
Lawrence even spoke about her concerns about being a mother in the public eye with Vanity Fair.
She explained that she’s setting boundaries when it comes to her baby, and is hoping to protect their privacy as much as possible.
However, she has also previously admitted: “If I was at a dinner party and somebody was like, ‘Oh my god, you’re expecting a baby,’ I wouldn’t be like, ‘God, I can’t talk about that. Get away from me, you psycho!'”
At the same time, she revealed that “every instinct in my body wants to protect their privacy for the rest of their lives, as much as I can,” Lawrence told the publication.
“I don’t want anyone to feel welcome into their existence. And I feel like that just starts with not including them in this part of my work.”
While she’s “grateful and excited” to start the next chapter in her life, she has also revealed she’s understandably “nervous” about the new challenges that await her.
“I’m so nervous,” she said. “I haven’t spoken to the world in forever. And to come back now, when I have all of these new accessories added to my life that I obviously want to protect… I’m nervous for you. I’m nervous for me. I’m nervous for the readers!”
Since announcing her pregnancy with her husband Cooke Maroney in September last year, she has avoided sharing anything else about the pregnancy as much as possible, and only briefly announced the birth of their baby a month after they were born.
However, the Oscar winner has been pretty vocal about her relationship with Cooke, and how she loves doing the little things with him. “I really enjoy going to the grocery store with him,” she told the outlet.
“I don’t know why but it fills me with a lot of joy. I think maybe because it’s almost a metaphor for marriage. ‘Okay, we’ve got this list. These are the things we need. Let’s work together and get this done.’
“And I always get one of the cooking magazines, like 15 Minute Healthy Meals, and he always gives me a look like, ‘You’re not going to use that. When are you going to make that?’ And I say, ‘Yes, I am. Tuesday!’ And he’s always right, and I never do.”
The actress then opened up a little bit more…
Speaking to Vogue for their October 2022 issue, Lawrence reflected on her pregnancy.
She admitted that throughout her pregnancy she found herself considering the changing landscape of women’s rights.
Adding that the recent US Supreme Court overruling Roe Vs Wade resurfaced painful memories for her.
The actress further explained she found it difficult to fathom that young people were being offered limited options, thus forcing them into unwanted pregnancies.
“I remember a million times thinking about it while I was pregnant,” she told the media outlet.
“Thinking about the things that were happening to my body. And I had a great pregnancy. I had a very fortunate pregnancy,” Lawrence added.
“But every single second of my life was different. And it would occur to me sometimes: What if I was forced to do this?” she continued.
Lawrence also confessed her concerns about raising a son in the US, speaking out on gun violence in schools.
“I’m raising a little boy who is going to go to school one day. Guns are the number-one cause of death for children in the United States. And people are still voting for politicians who receive money from the NRA,” she said.
“It blows my mind. I mean if Sandy Hook didn’t change anything? We as a nation just went, Okay! We are allowing our children to lay down their lives for our right to a second amendment that was written over 200 years ago,” the actress added.
But that’s not all, Lawrence also recalled some painful memories as a young girl…
She told Vogue that she had her first miscarriage in her early 20s.
And had “one hundred percent” intended to get an abortion before something else happened…
“I had a miscarriage alone in Montreal,” she confessed.
The award-winning actress suffered another loss a couple of years ago while shooting Don’t Look Up in late 2020/early 2021.
Lawrence revealed it was at this point in her life that she was married and she very much wanted to have a child but sadly she had another miscarriage. But this time round she had a D&C, which is the surgical procedure by which tissue is removed from the uterus.
Thankfully, Lawrence has given birth to a healthy baby boy, called Cy, but shared that she had concerns before she welcomed him into the world…
One of those concerns was that she would love her son less than her beloved cat.
In her interview with Vogue, she said “It’s so scary to talk about motherhood. Only because it’s so different for everybody.”
Admitting: “If I say, ‘It was amazing from the start,’ some people will think, ‘It wasn’t amazing for me at first,’ and feel bad.”
“Fortunately I have so many girlfriends who were honest. Who were like, ‘It’s scary. You might not connect right away. You might not fall in love right away.’”
She recalled a conversation she had with one of her close friends before the birth of her son, sharing: “I remember walking with one of my best friends at, like, nine months, and being like, ‘Everyone keeps saying that I will love my baby more than my cat. But that’s not true. Maybe I’ll love him as much as my cat?’”
However, those fears dissipated the moment he was born, with Lawrence sharing: “The morning after I gave birth, I felt like my whole life had started over.”
“Like, ‘Now is day one of my life.’ I just stared. I was just so in love.”
The star has also previously opened up about her marriage…
Revealing that she almost didn’t go through with it.
Lawrence admitted that she almost backed out of her marriage because of commitment fears.
It was during filming for her 2019 movie Causeway that Lawrence began to get cold feet, much like the character she was playing at the time.
“When you don’t fully know yourself, you have no idea where to put yourself,” she told The New York Times.
“And then I met my husband, and he was like, ‘Put yourself here.’ I was like, ‘That feels right, but what if it’s not?’”
She learned that she was actually suffering from commitment anxiety.
And revealed that she’s “so happy” she went through with the wedding.
“Then I went back, and when I’m home with my husband making this family, I’m so happy I stayed,” she said.
“I’m so happy I didn’t freak out and cancel the wedding and run away and go, ‘I’ll never be taken down!’”
In her interview with The New York Times, Lawrence also opened up about something else…
One of her biggest career regrets!
“Wait, who decided that this was a good movie?” she joked.
And when asked what movie she was referring to she said: “‘Passengers,’ I guess.”
“Adele told me not to do it! She was like, ‘I feel like space movies are the new vampire movies.’ I should have listened to her,” Lawrence admitted.
Oof. That’s gotta hurt!
Since then, Lawrence has come underfire after making a bold claim that she was the first female actress to have a leading role in an action movie.
It all began on Wednesday when Lawrence and Viola Davis took part in an interview with Variety’s Actors On Actors.
During the interview, Lawrence talked about how movie roles between men and women differ unfairly in Hollywood before adding the controversial claim that sent users online into a frenzy.
In the interview, Lawrence said: “Nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie,” referencing her role in the Hunger Games trilogy.
She continued: “We were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead.
“It just makes me so happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every one of those beliefs, and proves that it is just a lie to keep certain people out of the movies.
“To keep certain people in the same positions that they’ve always been in.”
After making the claim that she was the first female actress to take on a leading role in an action movie, users online were quick to fire back at Lawrence…
One commented: “Now how Jennifer Lawrence gon sit up here and say there wasn’t a female actress in an action movie until her in hunger games… so what was Pam Grier, Sigourney Weaver, Uma Thurman, and Mila Jovovich doing?”
A second added: “Lawrence is apparently so self-obsessed that she forgets a ton of other women were cast as female leads in action films: Linda Hamilton, HELLO. Sigourney Weaver? Angelina Jolie? Halle Berry? Uma Thurman and the ladies of Kill Bill? ‘DEATH PROOF’ CAST? Lawrence is annoying.”
While others rushed to defend the thirty-two-year-old actress.
One user commented: “Everyone’s dragging J-Law for this, but it’s pretty clear she’s sharing (with great derision) what was told to her and her team by studio execs, not what she thought at the time.”
A second chimed: “Yes, Jennifer Lawrence is wrong about female-led action movies, but her main thesis is correct. Engage with that, maybe you’ll learn something.”
Well, now Lawrence herself has responded!
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Lawrence said “that’s not what I meant to say at all!”
“I know that I am not the only woman who has ever led an action film.
“What I meant to emphasise was how good it feels.
“And I meant that with Viola — to blow past these old myths that you hear about … about the chatter that you would hear around that kind of thing.”
She added: “But it was my blunder and it came out wrong. I had nerves talking to a living legend.”
What do you think?