Those are her words, not mine. In a new interview with Adam Sandler for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Jennifer Lawrence says she is purposefully mean to fans who approach her in public.
JLaw: Once I enter a public place, I become incredibly rude. I turn into a huge asshole.
Sandler: You get icy?
JLaw: Yeah, and that’s the kind of my only way of defending myself, just be an asshole.
It’s interesting to me that Jennifer chooses to describe this behavior as a defense, to use the word “defending” specifically. What is she defending herself against? Is this really the right way to describe a slight inconvenience during dinner? The point she’s trying to make before she sh-ts on people who want a picture with her, the same people who go to her movies and have made her one the highest paid actresses in Hollywood, is that it must be harder for Adam Sandler because he’s a comedian who seems friendly (I guess?). Sandler counters that her persona is also one of approachability. He’s right. Jennifer Lawrence has built a pubic identity as a Cool Girl who could be your best friend. It makes sense that people would approach her with the assumption that she’s down-to-earth and Just Like Us! So, is she deliberately being an ass in protest of that façade? Or is she just an ungrateful ass?
JLaw elaborates to say that if a fan starts to approach her table at a restaurant, she’ll wag her finger at them to stop. If they ask for a selfie, she’ll brush them off with a hard NO. Listen, I know it’s probably irritating to have people interrupt you during dessert and the people who do this are probably not the kinds of people you want interrupting your dessert but is this really the thing you want to say out loud, for those same fans to read and interpret as they please? Especially when Adam Sandler is sitting across from you saying that while he also has said no to selfies, he lets his fans pull up a chair and chat with his family? I don’t think celebrities owe us their spare time but we also don’t need to hear them whine about the peasants who dare to breathe their air. Here, JLaw comes off as whiny and unappreciative.
Jennifer’s willingness to say the first thing that comes to her mind is part of her charm though, isn’t it? Sometimes, she’ll say something that makes her sound horrible but other times, she’ll be so refreshingly honest, you can’t help but like her. This is her skill. It works. When she’s not saying dumb sh-t, I generally like Jennifer Lawrence. And I was a Hunger Games nerd so deep down, she’ll always be Katniss Everdeen to me. I like her candor. As someone who produces celebrity interviews for a living, I appreciate that JLaw is always a good interview. She shows up. She entertains. She’s good at her job. But, to me, Jennifer Lawrence’s real-life likeability has two exceptions: when she’s gratingly dropping anecdotes about her friendship with Amy Schumer and in actor on actor roundtable situations like the recent Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable. She seems to be someone who loves to hear herself speak. She’s constantly speaking over others and dominating the conversation. In these scenarios, I don’t want Jennifer Lawrence—highest paid actress, Academy Award winner, Hollywood sweetheart— to have the loudest voice in the room and yet, she usually does.
That said, in this particular conversation for Variety, she’s more tolerable. I don’t want the rich, straight white man who has been given countless chances after many failures to dominate a conversation either but Adam Sandler seems like someone excruciatingly uncomfortable with hearing himself speak. He’s constantly looking at the floor and attempting to deflect the questions back on Jennifer. She swoops in to help him finish his sentences and makes it all seem less awkward.
The most awkward moment of this interview could have been when talk turned to JLaw’s ex, habitual scarf-wearer Darren Aronofsy. Aronofsky comes up a few times in the conversation, mostly in the context of being Jennifer’s director, not her boyfriend. But when Adam Sandler asks about whether she reads reviews of her work, JLaw offers up a potential reason for her breakup, other than their “huge age difference.”
“We’d be on the tour together, I’d come back to the hotel and the last thing I want to talk about or think about is the movie, and he comes back and that’s all he wants to talk about… I was doing double duty of trying to be a supportive partner while also being like, ‘Can I please, for the love of God, not think about ‘mother!’ for one second?’”
There’s that relatable JLaw again! If you’ve ever dated someone you also worked with, you can probably relate to never being able to escape the work. It also makes complete sense that Darren Aronofsky is a pretentious dick who obsessively reads reviews of his movies out loud to his girlfriend. I don’t understand how she lasted that long in a relationship with this dude. In the same interview that Jennifer Lawrence confessed she’s rude to fans to “defend” her privacy, she volunteers intimate details about her relationship and admits to googling herself to only read positive reviews. That’s the kind of sh-t people love her for, right? That’s the reason they want to take a selfie with her, right?
Does Jennifer Lawrence get to be – and profit from – the Cool Girl who is beloved for her bluntness AND be an unapproachable asshole?