Jennifer Lawrence - american beauty
Jenifer Lawrence is in some ways a diva and in some ways not. Despite a rocketing superstar carrier, she still comes off grounded. In interviews, she does not seem to take herself too seriously, and she struggles to hide her excitement when she encounters other stars on the red carpet. Besides, she seems to generally rejoice in the success of others. Recently she tweeted ‘Breaking F…king News! Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are back together!’
Her own stardom was reached in only 10 years, and resulting in her four Oscar nominations, including the prize for Best Female Actress. A prize she won for her performance as the slightly manic Tiffany in Silver Linings Playbook which premiered in 2013. In fact, she has waded through success since she was 14 years old, and she currently has a fortune of no less than 120 million dollars.
That she has kept both feet on the ground is partly thanks to her parents who managed to tackle their, at times, unruly teenager, who struggled to control her temper when things did not go her way. Nonetheless, Jennifer Lawrence convinced her parents to let her move to New York and live with her older brother while pursuing an acting carrier.
Learned how to act at the principal’s office
And she was not lacking talent. One day, when she was called to the principal’s office at risk of expulsion, she got a chance to try out her skills. She had jumped out the back door of a moving school bus. “I jumped out the back of a bus because everyone told me that I wouldn’t, and I have a very disgusting, competitive, horrible disease. I showed up to the principal’s office and I was like, ‘I was afraid for my life. I thought my friends were going to die, so I jumped out of the bus to save my life.’ Not only did I not get suspended, but I got two weeks off homework for post-traumatic stress.” she tells. Her first step as a professional was a modelling job. Soon, she got a couple of minor parts in tv-shows. Her first actual role was as the daughter of a main character in the sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007-09). TV critics were excited and wrote that she stole the whole show whenever she appeared on the screen. In 2008, she performed in her first movie, called Garden Party.
Winter’s Bone and the first Oscar nomination
The big breakthrough – and the first Oscar nomination – came in 2010 with the film Winter’s Bone. Lawrence plays the 17-year-old Ree Dolly whose dad has gone missing. Ree is thrown into a deadly game of lies and gruesome secrets.
That year, Natalie Portman won the Oscar for Best Female Actress for her performance in Black Swan. But already three years later, for the 85th Oscar ceremony in Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills, Jenifer Lawrence walked to the podium to receive a statuette for her leading part in Silver Linings Playbook. In this movie, she played across Bradley Cooper as the bipolar schoolteacher Pat, who has just returned after an 8-month treatment. They make an agreement: She will help him get his life together, and he will help her win a dance competition. Plot spoiler: Everything ends well in the end!
Tripped up the stairs at her first Oscar Award
But things did not go as smoothly when she went to collect her statuette and give her acceptance speech. That night – January 10th 2013 – she wore a dramatic white designer gown that made her float through the room. Unfortunately, a gown and high heels are not ideal when walking on a stair with 10 slippery steps. One of her heels caught a piece of fabric and down she fell on the first step. A collective gasp sounded through The Samuel Goldwyn Theater before everyone stood up and applauded the young actress. But as always, she kept her cool and was ready with a quick remark: “You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell!”
It is precisely this ability to come off honest and brave that has helped her reach success. There is no doubt that she has already had an amazing career; a career manifested by her latest box office hits: the movie that started it all, Winter’s Bone, her performance as avatar-like Mystique in X-Men: First Class (2011), as well as the following three X-Men films, the Oscar-winning part as Tiffany in Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and, of course, the part as Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games (2012). In only 13 years, she has acted in no less than 25 movies. The latest being: Don’t Look Up (2021), a star-studded comedy, featuring amongst others Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchet, and airing on Netflix.
The last couple of years though, a silence has seemed to fall around Jennifer Lawrence. She has been concentrating on her political agenda as a declared democrat. Besides, she is one of the actors who donates the most to charities such as suffrage movements and youth work. In any case, we do not yet seem to have seen the end of what Jennifer Lawrence can accomplish. The actress who succeeded in branding herself as a down-to-earth woman with an undeniable talent. Maybe also a bit clumsy on the red carpet, but she owns up to it – and is loved for it. Maybe because she reminds us a bit of ourselves – or, in any case, the girl next door.