Jennifer Lawrence’s decked Hollywood career has been iconic in its exponential rise and glorious in its gifted and colorful outcome. The actress couldn’t have chosen a better era to make her debut in the industry, a fact that has as much of a downside due to the relentless demand that comes with such extraordinary fame.
And having impressed the commercial marketplace just as greatly as the somber critics that follow in the wake of premieres, JLaw soon became the coveted darling of Hollywood, a star who could embroider every project she picked up with gold and make every movie into an immediate sensation. But such talent comes at a heavy cost.
Jennifer Lawrence’s Fame Gets to Her After 7 Years
2012’s The Hunger Games was already enough of a phenomenon in its craze-inducing dystopia. But it was Jennifer Lawrence’s Academy Award win for her performance in 2013’s Silver Linings Playbook that generated a raucous loud enough to secure her status among the industry elites. But in the aftermath, the fame that was showered on the young actress was too constant and too harsh to keep ignoring.
After a certain point, Lawrence came to terms with the reality of needing to take a breather and step out of the limelight. Before COVID-19 could send the entire world into lockdown, the actress herself decided to temporarily retire from Hollywood in 2019 and focus on her then newly-married life and enjoy a more hands-on role with her family.
Jennifer Lawrence Takes a Hard Exit Out of Hollywood
Despite enjoying extraordinary success and widespread adoration, the smothering lifestyle under the watchful eyes of the industry spurred Jennifer Lawrence into stepping away for a handful of years – a decision that wasn’t taken lightly, considering the amount of thought and feeling the actress had put into it.
“I was not pumping out the quality that I should have. I just think everybody had gotten sick of me. I’d gotten sick of me. It had just gotten to a point where I couldn’t do anything right. If I walked a red carpet, it was, ‘Why didn’t she run?’… I think that I was people-pleasing for the majority of my life. Working made me feel like nobody could be mad at me: ‘Okay, I said yes, we’re doing it. Nobody’s mad.’
And then I felt like I reached a point where people were not pleased just by my existence. So that kind of shook me out of thinking that work or your career can bring any kind of peace to your soul.
The attention on me was so high and extreme that, in a bizarre way, the set had become a great escape. Everybody treats you normally. But you get burnt out. Eventually I had to ask myself, Am I saying yes because I want to go to work the next day? Or am I doing this because I want to make this movie?”
In 2021, the Adam McKay apocalyptic satire, Don’t Look Up marked the actress’s official comeback although she would soon have to take a break to give birth to her first child, Cy, in February 2022. Jennifer Lawrence’s Oscar-nominated movie, Causeway, also marked her return to the industry after her pregnancy. Now, the actress has been shifting gears and making up for the lost time as she prepares for the premiere of her next project, No Hard Feelings, the raunchy R-rated comedy that comes out on 23 June 2023.
Source: Vanity Fair
