Madrid, Jun 14 (EFE).- Hollywood star and action hero Jennifer Lawrence has frequently displayed her humor and spontaneity on the red carpet and in interviews, but for the first time has injected all that potential into a lighthearted coming-of-age comedy that was previewed in Madrid on Wednesday.
“It’s the funniest thing I had ever read, I just thought it was the funniest movie,” the two-time Oscar winner and star of the blockbuster The Hunger Games saga told EFE.
In No Hard Feelings, a movie directed by Gene Stupnitsky, who was a screenwriter of The Office for five years, Lawrence plays a woman who finds the perfect solution to her financial issues after reading an advert on Craigslist written by the parents of an introverted 19 year old who are seeking a girlfriend for their son.
Stupnitsky, a friend of Lawrence’s, showed the actress the real ad that had been published and served as a springboard to the movie’s script over dinner one day.
“We were just laughing at it, like what kind of parents would actually do something like that and who would respond to it,” Lawrence chuckles.
Four years later, Stupnitsky handed Lawrence the script for a movie he says was “made for her.”
“I knew her, so I knew how funny she was and I wanted to show the world how funny she can be, and she’s a huge movie star, and it takes a huge movie star to get a studio comedy made in 2023,” he said.
Having become a mother over a year ago, Lawrence says she can understand so-called “helicopter” parents who in the film are played by Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti.
“Everybody just wants what’s best for their kid, and they just want to protect their kid and like anything else it goes a little too far. I’m sure I’ll have elements of that too and all sorts of things I’m going to have to work on,” she says.
During her interview with EFE, Lawrence sat barefoot next to her 21-year-old co-star Andrew Barth Feldman, an actor and singer from Broadway who also featured in Disney’s High School Musical.
“He is so funny and he also knows how to play emotion. He is going to be a very successful actor, you can see it,” Stupnitsky says of Barth Feldman.
Percy, Barth Feldman’s character, lives mostly online from his room interacting with the world through social media and video games, the director explains.
“I think it’s possible to have a healthy relationship with social media,” he says. “You have to set boundaries for yourself of how much you’re using it and for what purpose. And you have to use it how you wish it would be used. If you want social media to be a tool to spread goodness and communicate, then you have to use it that way. It can be whatever you want it to be, which is the wonderful thing about it, but it can also suck you into a lot of negativity and comparison.”
In 2018 Lawrence launched her own production company and recently presented its latest work at the Cannes Film Festival.
The documentary, by Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani, tackles the ongoing plight of women in Afghanistan after the return to power of the Taliban.
Lawrence has also collaborated with Represent Us, America’s leading anti-corruption NGO.
Although her publicist asks that she not be asked questions about politics, and specifically about Trump, the actress is willing to talk about her work as an activist.
“We have had a lot of victories, in North Dakota or Minnesota,” she says. “The idea is to bundle anti-corruption laws” she explains, locally, state by state, to achieve change at the federal level. EFE
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