Jennifer Lawrence’s best profile

Jennifer Lawrence is back in the Oscar mix this year after the world premiere of Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love in Cannes back in May, where she was praised for her performance as a new mother navigating rage and desire and boredom and Robert Pattinson. That was early in the season and now, as we’re really seeing the awards race take shape, she is not among the leaders in the Best Actress Oscar category. Not out of it, but definitely not carrying as much momentum as the frontrunners, like Jessie Buckley, Cynthia Erivo, and even her good friend Emma Stone. 

But Die, My Love was acquired by MUBI after Cannes and around the same time last year, they were pushing a Best Actress campaign for another title, The Substance, led by Demi Moore. Demi also had a strong Cannes and stayed in the conversation and she was also outside the top five looking in around the time of the Academy’s Governors Awards in November of 2024. So it’s too soon to count out Jennifer Lawrence who already has an Oscar to go along with her four nominations. The Academy knows her work – and it’ll be interesting to see how they calibrate this campaign and really strike at the right time. 

On that note, she is profiled in the current issue of The New Yorker, by Jia Tolentino, one of my favourites. So, naturally, this has now become my all-time favourite Jennifer Lawrence profile. JLaw has been famous a long time – since she was a teenager in Winter’s Bone and now, in her mid-30s, a mother of two young children. Of course she’s not who she was then, or during her various stages of celebrity through young adulthood, so it’s probably not fair to compare how she was in previous profiles to how she is at present. 

And yet, if you can get past the easy clickbait that’s being shared from the piece – like how she’ll be getting her tits done soon – this is the most thoughtful portrait of one of the biggest millennial movie stars to emerge over the last 20 years. Because JLaw herself is thoughtful as she reflects on her own performance of celebrity and the reasons why she leaned into the “goofy cool girl” persona that characterised the early part of her career; and also because Jia Tolentino is so thoughtful in how she presents that to both the reader but also to the subject of this profile.

Jia gives JLaw the space to talk about her untrained talent in a way that isn’t obnoxious or pretentious. For a long time the word on JLaw’s innate abilities has been that she’s been able to turn it on and off on set, much to the admiration and astonishment of her colleagues. Bradley Cooper, after Silver Linings Playbook, would talk often during that film’s Oscar run, about how she’d be totally clowning right before “action” and could click in to the scene immediately when she was called upon. Back then these anecdotes were accessories to her notoriety for being a wildcard, the girl who kept stumbling, literally, so frequently that what started off as charming eventually became sus, as in contrived. 

It turns out now that it’s as simple as hyperfocus. She does the work of understanding her character by talking to her directors, her co-stars (what a revelation!), and knowing the person she’s becoming by making her real through conversation and familiarity, a decidedly pedestrian study technique that’s a lot less sexy than someone who makes it a point of going full Method to the point of alienation, whether the cameras are rolling or not. 

Jia Tolentino deftly describes this process and also invites others to as well (Jodie Foster, Emma Stone), without glorifying it or undermining it. The takeaway, then, is that Jennifer Lawrence is an artist, she works hard, but the actual working doesn’t have to be a performance in and of itself. 

Speaking of artistry though, Jia herself is flexing here. The piece is a glorious read, with sentences so simple you almost miss their brilliance. This one, for example, stopped me, it’s just that sparingly good. In a paragraph about Sissy Spacek’s role in Die, My Love:

“The scenes in the book that Lawrence had responded to most strongly are between the protagonist and her mother-in-law, who tries to help but can’t. In the film, that role is played by Sissy Spacek, who gives the part an arresting gentleness; her arm, raised to support Grace, is like a bridge that’s already breaking.” 

An arm raised like a bridge that’s already breaking?! F-ck you, Jia, I wish that one was mine. That f-cking sentence just made me horny. 

You can read Jia Tolentino’s full profile on Jennifer Lawrence at The New Yorker.

Here’s JLaw in NYC yesterday and the main character of this outfit is the hat. What would you call this? Bucket or cloche? I love it. I love how it holds its shape and I love that it’s ribbed. Haven’t been able to find the exact match that she’s wearing but I think I’ve been shopping for a dupe since I saw her in these photos because I’m a year-round hat person for sun protection and I need a wider rim in the winter.

Starting on the pricy side, Bruno Cucinelli has two options – one in grey brown and one in cream with grey trim, quite similar to JLaw’s. Both super expensive but also limited in sizes so someone out there is buying it. 

I quite like this Ralph Lauren cable knit bucket hat even though the rim is more pronounced and it’s much more reasonably priced. 

Even more reasonably priced is the Vichy Cloche which is actually quite close to the one JLaw is wearing. 

And the most economical option on my list is at Joe Fresh and I know it reads more orange in that link but when you see it paired with the outfit here (a very cute set!) it’s much closer to camel. 

The closest in shape to JLaw’s might be Rise & Fall’s Wool Ribbed Knit Bucket Hat, it comes in a dark camel, I like it a lot.

Finally… an opportunity to talk about my favourite hat brand: Eugenia Kim. I’ve had this bucket hat  in my cart for weeks and have been waiting for a reason to reward myself to pull the trigger. It’s not at all like Jennifer Lawrence’s except that it’s a bucket but I just need to put you on to Eugenia Kim if you’re not there already because her hats never miss. They’re not cheap, but they’re also not mega luxury prices either. I usually get one Eugenia Kim hat every winter and they hold up well. 

Please note, this piece contains affiliate links.