Welcome to awards season, Jennifer Lawrence.
The 20-year-old actress came to Los Angeles on Saturday night, straight from the London set where she’s been filming “X-Men: First Class.” She arrived jet lagged and fighting a cold, and spent about 48 hours doing interview after interview; appearing at a post-screening Q&A for “Winter’s Bone,” the movie for which she’s a strong Best Actress contender; gamely working the room at a Sunday night reception in her honor; and accepting the New Hollywood Award from Jodie Foster at Monday night's Hollywood Awards Gala.
Then she went directly from the Hollywood Awards stage to the airport (“so Hollywood,” she says) and flew back to London to resume work on “X-Men,” in which she plays Mystique. (You know, the mutant in blue bodypaint.)
It’s a far cry from a childhood in suburban Kentucky, or from the hardscrabble Ozark Mountain world depicted in “Winter’s Bone,” Debra Granik’s tough, indelible low-budget drama about a teenage girl fighting to raise her younger siblings and hang onto the family home after their meth-dealing father disappears.
Since the movie won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, it has become a significant Oscar contender in the Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor (John Hawkes), Best Adapted Screenplay (Granik and Anne Rosellini) and Best Picture categories. The film was the most-nominated film for the Gotham Awards, while Lawrence was just named recipient of the Rising Star Award at next January’s Palm Springs International Film Festival.
TheWrap sat down with the plainspoken, no-nonsense young actress on her last afternoon in town, where she did her awards-season duties with a smile … and more than a few coughs.
How are you holding up?
Well, I got a good night’s sleep last night, so I feel a lot better. Yesterday I was running on no sleep and the sickness. Today I’m running on sickness and jet lag, but at least I got sleep. But I’ve been doing so many interviews that if anybody asks me a question on the plane, I’m gonna explode.
When you read the script for “Winter’s Bone,” did you connect with it right away?
Yes. My mom had read the book years ago, and told me that if they ever made it into a movie I’d be perfect. But I don’t listen to her – she’s just my mom. But after I read the script, I would have done anything and everything for it. The character’s strength, her grit, her not taking no for an answer – I would have been honored to play that.
So how’d you land the role?
I auditioned twice, but they said I didn’t have the right look. So then I had to fly to New York on a redeye to chase them down and try to convince them to hire me. And they changed their minds.
But how do you persuade them to change their minds when it’s your look they don’t think is right?
I don’t know.
