"I lose so much control over my craft": Jennifer Lawrence once opened up to Viola Davis about struggles with press 

Jennifer Lawrence is speaking openly about her uneasy relationship with press interviews and how they affect her work. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, she confessed that she has never been great at doing press. According to the Oscar-winning actress, she usually feels like she spirals out of control with her craft every time she has to promote a movie.

Jennifer Lawrence also admitted that speaking publicly about her job occasionally deprives her of the concentration to act. During the years, she has witnessed the transformation of the way people view her personality. She was once commended as someone authentic and funny, but she came to be criticized later on as what some people believed was an act.

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Jennifer Lawrence felt “rejected” for her personality

During the interview, Jennifer Lawrence recalled telling fellow actress Viola Davis about how exhausting press tours can be.

"Every time I do an interview, I think, ‘I can’t do this to myself again. I feel like I lose so much control over my craft when I have to do press for a movie."

She also reflected on how she used to come across in past interviews. Lawrence said that her quirky and outspoken personality was genuine but also served as a form of protection. She shared, noting how humor helped her deal with attention and criticism.

"It was a defense mechanism, to just be, like, ‘I’m not like that! I poop my pants every day!’."

The actress said she began to understand why some people found her public persona “annoying,” even agreeing that Ariana Grande’s 2016 Saturday Night Live impression of her was accurate.

"I look at those interviews, and that person is annoying. I get why seeing that person everywhere would be annoying."

Still, Jennifer Lawrence admitted that the backlash took a toll.

“I felt—I didn’t feel, I was, I think—rejected not for my movies, not for my politics, but for me, for my personality,” she explained.

The online reaction made her feel like she had lost control of how people saw her.

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Regaining creative freedom

Jennifer Lawrence also talked about the choices she made about her career and their assistance in reclaiming creative control. In 2022, during an interview with the New York Times, she stated that, since she felt more like a celebrity than an actor, she could not have the status quo at the agency she was being represented by (CAA).

“I found out that a lot of filmmakers that I really loved and admired had scripts that weren’t even reaching me. I had let myself be hijacked.”

The actress wanted to reconnect with her passion for storytelling. Speaking at The Hollywood Reporter, Actors on Actors Roundtable, the same year, she said, although she was being represented by a "big agency", she felt as if she "was just losing touch with the world a little bit,” elaborating,

"I was working so much, and so much of what we do has to do with observing people. I felt like I couldn’t really observe anyone because everybody was observing me."

Taking a break from the spotlight allowed her to reset. Lawrence said stepping away from constant work and publicity gave her space to rediscover her creativity.

“Taking a few years and getting back to life, I feel like I can be creative again in that sense,” she noted.

Directed by Lynne Ramsay, Die, My Love, starring Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, and Sissy Spacek, is scheduled to release on 7th November.

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