Jennifer Lawrence appeared on “The Interview” podcast from The New York Times as part of her “Die My Love” press tour and got honest about her newfound resistance to talking to the press about politics. The Oscar winner was outspoken against Donald Trump during his first administration as U.S. president, notably writing an op-ed after Election Day in which she declared that Trump’s victory meant “the only people that feel safe [in America], that their rights are recognized and respected, are white men.”
When asked by “The Interview” host Lulu Garcia-Navarro about her thoughts on speaking out now regarding Trump and politics, Lawrence answered: “I don’t really know if I should. The first Trump administration was so wild and just how can we let this stand? I felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. But as we’ve learned, election after election, celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for. So then what am I doing? I’m just sharing my opinion on something that’s going to add fuel to a fire that’s ripping the country apart. We are so divided.
“I think I’m in a complicated recalibration because I’m also an artist,” Lawrence continued. “With this temperature and the way things can turn out, I don’t want to start turning people off to films and to art that could change consciousness or change the world because they don’t like my political opinions. I want to protect my craft so that you can still get lost in what I’m doing. And if I can’t say something that’s going to speak to some kind of peace or lowering the temperature or some sort of solution, I don’t want to be a part of the problem. I don’t want to make the problem worse… You watch these actors’ faces who have had incredible careers and made incredible contributions and then one half of the internet doesn’t want to see their face anymore. I get so upset for those people and it feels so wrong.”
Lawrence noted thats he’s able to get across her political beliefs via her work, such as the movies she’s making at her production company. These projects include “Bread and Roses,” which follows three women in Afghanistan amid the effects of the 2021 Taliban offensive, and the abortion documentary “Zurawski v Texas.”
“I try to express my politics through my work,” she noted. “A lot of movies coming out from my production company are expressions of the political landscape and that’s how I feel like I can be helpful.”
She then quipped when asked if she regretted how she’s handled speaking out in the past: “Probably? I regret everything I’ve ever done or said. I’m going to take the zip drives out of all of these cameras when I leave. The second term feels different. Because he said what he was going to do. We knew what he did for four years. He was very clear. And that’s what we chose.”
Lawrence’s press tour for “Die My Love” has largely been defined by her blunt reflections on her career and how the public turned against her brash personality and outspokenness. She told Vanity Fair in 2021 that she took a two-year break from Hollywood because “everybody had gotten sick of me. I’d gotten sick of me.” In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Lawrence admitted that she understood why the public “rejected” her personality because she actually was “annoying” in old interviews. She expanded on the topic during her chat on “The Interview.”
“As horrified as I am at some things — like an old interview or something, so cringe — I get it. I was young and nervous and defensive and awkward,” Lawrence told Garcia-Navarro. “I remember when I was nominated for ‘Silver Linings Playbook,’ somebody was like: ‘Everybody loves you! What does that feel like?’ I was like: It feels precarious. It’s going to come down. That’s just the nature of things. And then I fell getting my Oscar, and the next year I was waving to fans and I tripped on a cone and I remember being like: “[Expletive], that’s it. Nobody’s gonna believe that I fell two years in a row… everybody thought that meant everything that I did was fake and it was all a shtick. This is how it felt to me. That I got found out as this fraud.”
Lawrence explained that she grew sick of herself in part because “I was just sick of doing this,” referring to the grueling press tour cycle.
“Doing interviews is really scary. I’m very blessed, I’m very lucky, I’m very grateful. But it’s terrifying,” Lawrence said. “You finish an interview or you’re gearing up to release a film and you’re putting yourself out there to be picked apart. I was just so tired of being quoted and people talking about the quotes, so tired of seeing myself in that way. I needed a break from it. People needed a break from it. It was a mutual breakup.”
When “The Interview” host noted that Lawrence appears “a lot more reserved” than she used to be in press interviews, the actor noted: “I’ve also grown up. And yeah, I’m a lot more nervous about whatever I say publicly. I don’t want to give an interview that’s a bunch of sound bites and a word salad. I don’t think that’s interesting and it would feel so inauthentic and not like what I’m here to do. So I’m trying to strike that balance.”
Mubi is releasing “Die My Love” in theaters Nov. 7. Head over to The New York Times’ website to listen to Lawrence’s full discussion on “The Interview.”
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