Jennifer Lawrence rose to stardom for her portrayal of Katniss Everdeen in 2012’s The Hunger Games, which also saw her career catapult to new heights. While many celebrities aspire to such an achievement, the actress regrets working on big-budget movies.
Although she claims not to hate appearing in Suzanne Collin’s movie adaptation, Lawrence revealed she should have not accepted the offer to star in 2016’s Passengers opposite Guardians of the Galaxy actor Chris Pratt.
Jennifer Lawrence Regrets Starring In Passengers
Morten Tyldum’s Passengers was a box-office success, amassing $302 million in worldwide profit against a budget of $150 million. Despite the stellar figures, it was heavily bombed by critics. The success of the film was evidently influenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s presence, which still carries her popularity fresh off The Hunger Games franchise.
With a successful theatrical release, the Red Sparrow star was handsomely paid a total of $20 million. The huge paycheck did not appease Lawrence and still went on to admit the role was one of the biggest regrets in her career.
In her interview with The New York Times, Lawrence discussed her relationship with fame and why she decided to take on roles from small-budget movies over big-time and popular ones:
“Everything was like a rebound effect. I was reacting, rather than just acting. I found out that a lot of filmmakers that I really loved and admired had scripts that weren’t even reaching me. I had let myself be hijacked.”
She talked about her previous projects that came after The Hunger Games, which included sci-fi movies such as Passengers and the X-Men franchise. The actress also noted that her former talent agency, CAA, was also responsible for it.
She noted that these projects steered her away from smaller movies that she actually liked to work on, and this was when she “realized that too many people were involved in making the decisions that should have been hers alone.” Lawrence remarked:
“I felt like more of a celebrity than an actor, cut off from my creativity, my imagination.”
Since then, Lawrence has been taking on roles for small-budget projects, with her recent movie, Causeway, now streaming on AppleTV.
Jennifer Lawrence Reveals How She Handled Stress Amid Fame
While Jennifer Lawrence admits she hated starring in blockbuster movies, the same could not be said for The Hunger Games. In fact, the 32-year-old actress looks back at it on a positive note and calls it “fantastic.”
The fame and pressure that came around during the height of the film’s popularity brought so much stress on the American Hustle star, but she revealed finding a way to take the edge off, which also made her bond with co-stars Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth stronger:
“The only thing that gave me pause was just how famous it would make me. The boys and I would always go back to our hotel and just drink whiskey and get stoned.”
Jennifer Lawrence also starred in 2021’s Don’t Look Up, a Netflix comedy film by Adam McKay, and she will soon appear as Maddie Barker in Gene Stupnitsky’s No Hard Feelings, coming to theaters this June 23, 2023.
Source: The New York Times
