Feuding with her family, the Quentin Tarantino role she had to pass up, and the real reason one
of her arms is longer. Jennifer Lawrence has come a long way from fighting rats for food.
Jennifer Lawrence is a Hollywood A-lister now, but her journey to get there didn't
have an easy start. She revealed during an interview with "60 Minutes":
"I dropped out of middle school. I don't
technically have a GED or a diploma. I am self-educated."
Despite missing out on a huge part of her childhood in the pursuit of acting,
Lawrence is at peace with her decision,
telling "60 Minutes" that she doesn't regret the choice to drop out in any way, saying:
"I wanted to forge my own path. I found what I wanted to do and
I didn't want anything getting in the way of it."
The Telegraph noted that at 14-years-old, she decided to pursue her dream of being an actor by
moving to New York. Luckily, her risky choice paid off, as Lawrence told the publication:
"I got discovered or whatever you want to call it and I loved acting
and knew it was what I was supposed to be doing and thought I could be good at it."
"And then I didn't work for a long time but I walked around for so long going,
'Well I got a callback on the first thing I auditioned for, so, like, I'm pretty good.'"
Although it can't have been easy leaving her education behind, Lawrence was steadfast in
her belief that she wanted to act, and her leap of faith most definitely paid off.
Moving to New York was a lot less glamorous than it sounds. Lawrence wanted to pursue acting in
the city, but the future Oscar-winner's living quarters were pretty shocking.
Lawrence had to share her apartment with rats while she tried to make it as an actor,
which was every bit as gross as you might think. She told NPR,
"I didn't really have any money, so if a rat had eaten my loaf of bread, before when I first got
there I [would have been] like, 'Ew!' and throw the whole loaf of bread away, but eventually
I was like, 'God, I'm not going to be able to afford bread. So I started just cutting around
the hole that the rat ate. I got to the point where I was literally sharing food with a rat."
While it's hard to imagine Lawrence sharing her food with rats,
it's clear that she was dedicated to being taken seriously as an actor. The
"Joy" star actually revealed that her parents quickly realized just how much
their daughter wanted to work as an actor when they saw how awful her apartment was.
Lawrence was catapulted to superstardom in her role as Katniss Everdeen in 2012's
"The Hunger Games," based upon the book by Suzanne Collins.
"Did you guys know that I was in The Hunger Games? Did you, yup, yup, that's me."
She reprised the part in three sequels, and according to Lawrence,
playing Katniss was physically taxing on her body,
especially when it came to archery. Speaking to NPR in 2015, Lawrence revealed,
"It totally changed my body. It was so crazy, when I went back for the fitting
for the second movie for 'Catching Fire,' my shoulders were two inches broader and
my right arm is one inch longer than my left arm, permanently, I guess."
Lawrence certainly shows an impressive level of dedication in all of her roles,
and it seems as though she also enjoys learning new skills.
Lawrence has worked with some of the world's most renowned directors throughout her career,
but there's one in particular who tried and failed to book the Oscar winner for one of
his movies. When Quentin Tarantino was casting 2015's "The Hateful Eight," he apparently reached
out to Lawrence in the hopes of booking her in a lead role. Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly
that he was a huge fan of hers, and Lawrence even met with the "Pulp Fiction" director,
but unfortunately, they didn't end up working together on that occasion.
According to Tarantino, it was unlikely that Lawrence
was ever going to take a role in "The Hateful Eight" to begin with. He added:
"She was just doing me a courtesy to see me,
I think. She was doing 'Joy.' She had to do all this publicity on the 'Hunger
Games' movies. There was just no f---ing way in the world that she was available."
Ultimately, the role went to Jennifer Jason Leigh instead of Lawrence, and Tarantino seemed to be
pretty happy with the decision, since he admitted that he considered Lawrence a little young for the
part. We can only hope that Lawrence and Tarantino have the chance to work together in the future.
Politics divide a lot of people, and Lawrence's family started to experience that divide during
the 2016 election, which saw Donald Trump win the presidency. During her October 2022
interview with Vogue, Lawrence discussed the aftermath of those differing politics,
and the steps she'd taken to mend fences. She explained:
"I just worked so hard in the last five years to forgive my dad and my family
and try to understand: It's different. The information they are getting is different."
However, the actor struggled to get past the
differing political allegiances of some of her family members.
"I'm so glad to be home. Unlock the door."
"No politics. None."
Ultimately, Lawrence wants to stand up for the issues and causes she believes in. She told Vogue:
"I can't f--- with people who aren't political anymore. You live in the United
States of America. You have to be political. It's too dire. Politics are killing people."
During her September 2022 interview with Vogue, Lawrence revealed that she has experienced two
miscarriages during her life, the first of which occurred in her early twenties. After revealing
that she had planned to get an abortion, Lawrence told the publication that the pregnancy ended in
a miscarriage. Her second loss occurred while she was filming "Don't Look Up," when she had
planned on keeping the baby. Vogue also revealed that Lawrence underwent a dilation and curettage
procedure following her second miscarriage, which involves removing tissue from the uterine lining.
While speaking to Vogue, Lawrence reflected on her pregnancy in the
light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, saying:
"I remember a million times thinking about it while I was pregnant. Thinking
about the things that were happening to my body. [...] And it would occur
to me sometimes: What if I was forced to do this?"
Alongside her acting work, J-Law also scored an incredibly lucrative endorsement deal when
she was signed by Dior. Working with the iconic fashion house has
only strengthened Lawrence's image, but as a young actor,
she was apparently surprised to be offered the wonderful deal. She told Harper's Bazaar:
"I could not believe it when they signed me. They fly me to Paris and get me hotel rooms,
and I'm like, 'Are you kidding me? You don't have to be so nice!' I
couldn't renew my contract quickly enough."
"When did I get here?"
"Is this mine?"
In 2015, Lawrence opened up about working with Dior while shooting a campaign for
the brand's new lipstick. She told The Hollywood Reporter:
"To me, the Dior woman is playful, spontaneous and free. 'Shine don't be shy' means this is
your moment to radiate, and feel good and confident. I know nothing about being shy."
As the face of one of the most recognizable fashion houses on the planet, Lawrence just
further proved that she was an in-demand star with a bright future ahead of her.
2016's "Passengers" is a sci-fi thriller about two people who are accidentally woken up before
their spacecraft has reached the colony on which they're hoping to start a new life. Jennifer
Lawrence stars alongside Chris Pratt in the film, and although their star power alone should've made
the movie a success, it wasn't. Basically, reviews were less than stellar, with many
suggesting that Pratt's character was exceedingly creepy, leading to an unsatisfying flick.
"Did you wake me up?"
But if Lawrence had listened to her close friend Adele,
then she might have swerved the project altogether.
Reflecting on her decision to appear in "Passengers," Lawrence told The New York Times:
"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."
Although the movie went on to gross more than $303 million worldwide,
it never really recovered from the bad reviews it received,
making it one of Lawrence's biggest critical duds to date. If only she'd listened to Adele!
As one of the most famous people in the world,
Lawrence occasionally travels on private jets. However, one particular flight almost
put Lawrence off flying altogether. During an interview with Vanity Fair,
Lawrence revealed that in 2017, she was flying on a private jet from her hometown of Louisville,
Kentucky, when both engines failed in the air. Lawrence said of the terrifying experience:
"We were all just going to die. I started leaving little mental voicemails to my family,
you know, 'I've had a great life, I'm sorry.'"
When a runway started coming into view below, Lawrence prepared herself for the worst. Somehow,
the pilots managed to land the plane without any casualties,
but Lawrence remains traumatized by the horrible experience.
"I'm not the best flier."
Thankfully, the actor survived, but it's hard to
imagine what it must have been like to live throughout something so shocking.
Although J-Law rarely reveals much about her relationship with husband Cooke Maroney,
she finally confirmed how she'd met the art dealer during an interview with Vogue in late 2022. Per
the publication, Lawrence was introduced to her now-husband by film director Gene Stupnitsky,
with whom she worked on 2023's "No Hard Feelings." Apparently Lawrence needed some advice from
someone in the art world, and Stupnitsky had Maroney's phone number. According to Lawrence,
she was pretty much smitten with Maroney when she first met him, telling Vogue:
"I was like, 'Do you know how gorgeous you are?' I didn't say that, but I was like,
'Is this a joke? Is this a prank?'"
"He's really hot."
During an appearance on the "NAKED With Catt Sadler" podcast,
Lawrence opened up about her relationship with Maroney, saying,
"I just met Cooke and I wanted to marry him. We
wanted to marry each other. We wanted to commit fully."
Lawrence has been married to Maroney since October 2019. But before she met her husband,
Lawrence was linked to several celebrities, including Coldplay's Chris Martin, actor
Nicholas Hoult, and director Darren Aronofsky. According to the "American Hustle" star,
she doesn't necessarily look for something in particular when it comes to dating. When
asked by Harper's Bazaar in 2016 if she had a type, Lawrence explained,
"I don't think so because patterns are the work of the devil. If I think
about all of my ex-boyfriends, they are all so uncomparable."
Lawrence has also been forced to navigate the dating world as an incredibly famous actor,
meaning that most people recognize and
make assumptions about her. She went on to tell Harper's Bazaar:
"I can feel people sometimes are intimidated by me, but I try to do the best I can to offset
that. There is zero reason to be intimidated by me. At all. But I also understand it."
"Well I just generally, once I enter a public place I become
incredibly rude. I turn into a huge asshole."
In February 2022, it was reported that Jennifer Lawrence had given birth to her first baby.
Later that year, Lawrence revealed during an interview with Vogue that the child was
a baby boy named Cy, taking his name from one of her husband's favorite painters,
Cy Twombly. Lawrence has kept many details of her family life a secret from the press,
but she did open up to Vogue about what it was like becoming a mother for the first time, saying:
"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."
Perhaps most importantly,
the actor is fiercely protective of her son's privacy, as she told Vanity Fair,
"Every instinct in my body wants to protect their privacy for the rest of their lives,
as much as I can. I don't want anyone to feel welcome into their existence."