Jennifer Lawrence, the Oscar-winning, multi-layered actress began to make her mark in the industry with the magnificently produced Hunger Games film series that took over the entire planet after its debut in 2012. Lawrence, in turn, turned into an overnight sensation as did her co-stars from the cinematic adaptations.
The ensuing celebration that launched in honor of the Hollywood star on the rise was an unprecedented event. Jennifer Lawrence was no longer an indie actress living on the fringes of LA. She was the face and brand of Hollywood, a name that defined the revolutionary era of dystopian filmmaking in the years that followed.
Jennifer Lawrence Discovers the Hazards of Fame
The inimitable Jennifer Lawrence too is human, despite what her celebrity status may paint her life to be. The Hunger Games star, as it seems, was slow to catch on to the idea of fame and popularity when her movie premiered in 2012 across the United States and later, worldwide.
As she later recounted in an interview with CNN, the actress’s grocery outing – an activity that seems more like an outing combined with a mundane chore – turned into a nightmare-level event for the young star after the people in Whole Foods began hounding her for autographs and pictures.
“Literally, the day the movie was released, I had no idea I was famous yet or that anybody had seen the movie. I don’t think actually I knew the movie came out that day.”
But the situation would have been yet another example of celebrities being haunted by their fame if not for the unexpected arrival of a third party during the incident. As the actor went on to reveal, soon after the authorities escorted her to safety, she stumbled upon a familiar face from the past in her worst moment:
“[They] had to call the police, and I had to go down the cargo elevator and I was crying. And I saw my ex-boyfriend there and he’s like, ‘How’s your life?’ And I was like, ‘Really bad.’ It was the worst.”
Since the Whole Foods incident, Lawrence did get a better grip on the darker aspects of fame and popularity. The decade that followed rose her to an exponential status of global recognition with her countless projects that successively dominated the box office up until her temporary retirement in 2019.
Jennifer Lawrence Takes a Breather From Hollywood
Following her break-out debut in The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence went on to star in Silver Linings Playbook in 2013 which made her one of the youngest actors to take home the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. A plethora of projects soon followed in its wake, making Lawrence one of the highest-paid actresses in the world by 2018.
However, after the premiere of the 2019 FoxVerse film Dark Phoenix, starring Sophie Turner, Lawrence needed to take a hiatus from acting, one that lasted through the pandemic and marked her comeback in 2021 with Adam McKay’s explosive satire, Don’t Look Up.
Speaking of her transitory hiatus and the destructive level of fame she commanded, the actress revealed,
“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 […] I think that I was people-pleasing for the majority of my life […] 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 the middle of the pandemic, the actress found her inspiration back. Now a mother, Lawrence divides her time between family and work, and with the incredible reception of Don’t Look Up, it seems as though the Oscar-winning star has also learned to distinguish between wanting to work and wanting to make a movie.
Source: CNN
