In her relatively short career, at the time of writing Jennifer has already received well over 200 award nominations and counting by her mid-twenties, which by anyone’s standards is a huge accomplishment. She has only been on the scene for a few short years, but from her role as Bill Engvall’s teenage daughter to her Academy Award-nominated performance in the hit crime comedy American Hustle, she has quickly proved herself to be one of Hollywood’s most talented stars, and she has a trophy cabinet to prove it.
For her first television appearance in The Bill Engvall Show she won and shared the Outstanding Young Performers in a TV Series Award in 2011 with her co-stars Skyler Gisondo and Graham Patrick Martin, given by the Young Artist Awards. She was also nominated for the Best Performance in a TV Series (Comedy or Drama) Supporting Young Actress by the same body for the same role.
However, in 2009 she had to say a tearful farewell to her TV family when she started to land big-screen roles. Although she assured them she would be back, for the foreseeable future there is little chance of Jennifer returning to television roles.
She was amazed and honoured to win an award for Outstanding Performance at the Los Angeles Film Festival for the movie The Poker House, but she was starting to get used to making gracious acceptance speeches, which was just as well since the accolades were coming thick and fast.
Jennifer was also nominated for Best Performance in a TV Movie, Mini-Series or Special-Leading Young Actress for the same role. The Marcello Mastroianni Award for Emerging Actors, which she won at the Venice Film Festival for The Burning Plain (2008), swiftly followed this.
Her break-out lead role in Winter’s Bone also led to a string of awards, and the beginning of several years during which Jennifer would find herself dominating the red carpet whether she liked it or not – that was the role which led to her first ever Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
Even her roles in action-movie franchises, which are so often overlooked by critics and awards panels, gained her serious critical recognition and praise. Scream Awards nominated her as Best Fantasy Actress for her role as Mystique/Raven in the movie X-Men: First Class in 2011. Teen Choice Awards also nominated Jennifer as Choice Movie Breakout: Female, and together with her X-Men co-stars she won the Choice Movie Chemistry category.
And it came as no surprise that her role as Katniss Everdeen also gained her a combined forty awards and nominations – and counting!
Despite all the plaudits, the awards she has piling up and a bulging bank balance, Jennifer has managed to stay remarkably grounded and she admitted to W Magazine that she doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. ‘I don’t have many talents: I’m not a good cook, I can’t clean, and I can’t sew. The only thing I can do well is shoot a bow – which I learned to do for The Hunger Games, and will probably never come in handy – and act.
‘Imagine me 100 years ago: I would have been pointless.’
She may be notoriously self-deprecating, but in an appearance on the late-night talk programme, The Colbert Report, in 2014, Jennifer admitted that not only has she eaten squirrel chilli, but she has even skinned a squirrel herself to prepare authentically for a particularly demanding scene.
In Winter’s Bone her character, Ree, had to shoot, and then skin a squirrel and remove the guts to feed her hungry family. In an interview with Rolling Stone Jennifer explained that while she would like to say that particular scene was not real for the sake of animal welfare charity PETA, it really did happen. She had been given the choice to fake it, but Jennifer takes her job seriously, and so she insisted on actually gutting the squirrel herself for the scene. Although she gave a convincing performance, the moment the cameras stopped rolling she screamed and claimed she could never eat spaghetti again.
In 2012 Jennifer was thrilled to receive an Academy Award nomination for her outstanding role as Tiffany Maxwell in the critically acclaimed drama Silver Linings Playbook. She had almost lost the part to Gossip Girl star Blake Lively, but luckily she was chosen for the role that would change her life for ever.
The months following her nomination were a whirlwind as she joined the studio’s campaign to scoop the biggest awards on the night. She remained cool and calm through a veritable tsunami of media interviews, press appearances and glitzy parties. The best designers fought to dress her, and she knew the eyes of the world were watching, scrutinising and judging her every move. Anyone who wanted her to trip up had no idea just how precisely their wish was about to come true.
Of course, she did go on to scoop the Best Actress Oscar, in February 2013, having already triumphed at a host of other award ceremonies in the run-up to her big night, including the Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, Screen Actors Guild, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, Central Ohio Film Critics Association, Denver Film Critics Society, IGN Summer Movie Awards, MTV Movie Awards and the People’s Choice Awards.
No doubt about it, Silver Linings Playbook was clearly a trophy role for Jennifer, thanks to her impressively lively, prickly, damaged and flushed portrait of widowed dance competitor Tiffany. When she signed on to play the part, she had no idea that it would lead to so many awards; she simply saw it as a well-written script and a golden acting opportunity, which she grabbed between her teeth before flinging herself into the tango with typical verve and enthusiasm. There were other nominees, including Jessica Chastain in the lauded military thriller Zero Dark Thirty, but from the start Jennifer quickly emerged as the front-runner of the awards season that year, with Hollywood seemingly desperate to crown her as its new darling.
However, it was her now-legendary appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony 2013 that has gone down in showbiz history. Jennifer arrived with her then boyfriend Nicholas Hoult and wowed on the red carpet. Throughout the ceremony she appeared relaxed and composed, but after her name was called by French actor Jean Dujardin – who won an award the previous year for the charming silent cinema homage The Artist – she rushed towards the stage and suddenly tripped on the hem of her floor-length white Dior gown, falling up the steps to gasps from the star-studded audience.
The humiliation of ruining a key moment like that, while being watched by a global audience running into the billions, is almost certainly every star’s worst nightmare. She may not have looked graceful or dignified when it happened, but Jennifer bravely laughed it off, and even managed to pull herself together sufficiently well to make a joke when she finally reached the microphone. She suggested that the audience were only clapping, cheering and jumping to their feet not because she had won, but because she fell over and they felt sorry for her.
It was a moment that would be replayed, analysed and joked about again and again. Some sceptics even suggested she had stumbled on purpose to make more of a name for herself, but Jennifer never confessed to anything like that.
Afterwards she admitted to being star-struck when she realised that actor Hugh Jackman had actually jumped up to help her from his seat in the front row, but said that at first she had not even noticed him behind her as she struggled to her feet in a bid to retain a shred of dignity.
Later she explained how the pressure surrounding the Oscars could make it an overwhelming experience. ‘It’s an honour and an overwhelming compliment, but it’s also a kind of bizarre thing. All of a sudden you’re at these parties and everybody’s famous, and you feel like a loser,’ she told W magazine.
But it later emerged that Jennifer was being supported by friends in high places, and Sony Pictures then co-chair Amy Pascal had emailed her shortly before the glitzy ceremony, saying: ‘I hope you have a great weekend and I hope you get all the good things that are coming to you this weekend and forever.
‘I’ll be there Sunday cheering you on.’
This electronic exchange between Pascal and Jennifer, who uses the nickname Peanutbutt as part of her email address, was later revealed in a widespread leak of thousands of messages hacked from the Sony database.
Despite her triumphant win that night, Jennifer would never be allowed to forget her famous fall. And in an interview with Dior, the French couturier who designed the glamorous white gown she wore on the night, Jennifer recalled that spectacularly embarrassing moment, for which she will always be remembered: ‘I do obviously have very special memories of the dress I wore to the Oscars, some fun, some not,’ she said, laughing. ‘They need to make it more accessible for stairs, in my opinion.’
But beside that one small quip, Jennifer has made it abundantly clear that she adores Dior, and was both amazed and delighted when she was offered a contract to appear in several lucrative advertising campaigns for the French luxury goods label. As part of the deal she almost always wears Dior on the red carpet.
‘It feels nice when you’re dressed in something beautiful and you feel beautiful,’ she said of their exclusive, expensive gowns. ‘When you’re wearing an outfit you feel really proud of, or a dress you feel really good in, it can be fun, and therefore make you happier.’
Stumbling up the stairs was not the only blunder that Jennifer would be remembered for during that awards season. Already she had stirred up controversy a few weeks earlier when she had accepted her 2013 Golden Globe after beating Meryl Streep, who had been nominated in the same category for August: Osage County.
As she took to the stage, Jennifer gazed at her statuette’s inscription and blurted out, ‘Oh, what does it say? “I beat Meryl!’” Some audience members did not realise that the quip was an innocent nod to a 1996 comedy and claimed to be horrified by her arrogance for she appeared to be mocking the lauded actress for not winning.
But Jennifer defended herself as soon as she had the chance. ‘First of all, it’s Meryl Streep. You can’t offend Meryl Streep,’ she later told David Letterman on his show when asked about the misunderstanding soon after the awards ceremony had aired. ‘It’s never a good idea for me to wing it, but it was a quote from First Wives Club,’ she added, as she used her segment on The Late Show to repent for her sin of apparently mock-dissing Meryl.
Still, Jennifer did not understand how the internet could misinterpret her playful remark, and hit back at the torrent of abuse she had endured. She went on: ‘All of a sudden I hate Meryl Streep. Is that what this turned into? I don’t like Meryl Streep? As if I had my eyes on getting that girl forever and I was like, “Finally! I knew it would happen one day.’”
But given that Streep is one of the most famous celebrities on the planet, it is hardly surprising that Jennifer’s words were so widely misinterpreted or taken out of context and exaggerated.
Apparently Meryl’s daughter Mamie Gummer was among those who did not get the joke, and she confessed that she had been confused by Jennifer’s ill-timed remark.
And actress Lindsay Lohan took to Twitter to vent her protest against what she thought Jennifer’s statement had meant, adding that ‘no one should mess with a legend such as Meryl Streep’.
However, Jennifer has long been an admirer of the Hollywood icon and told Vanity Fair magazine that she would never insult one of her acting idols: ‘Once I’m obsessed with somebody, I’m terrified of them instantly. I’m not scared of them – I’m scared of me and how I will react.
‘Like, for instance, one time someone was introducing me to Bill Maher, and I saw Meryl Streep walk into the room, and I literally put my hand right in Bill Maher’s face and said, “Not now, Bill!” and I just stared at Meryl Streep. I just creepily stared at her.’
Jennifer has admitted that she often finds it difficult to keep her cool when she comes face to face with other celebrities that she admires, and that often she cannot help behaving like a star-struck fan. Another similar misunderstanding arose in May 2014 when she attended a private party hosted by Armani and Vanity Fair during the Cannes Film Festival, and started screaming as she spotted legendary director Alfonso Cuarón.
She approached him and said she was so excited that she broke out her ‘rape scream’ for him. The remark was overheard and backfired as it caused a stream of outrage from people who accused her of trivialising rape. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton later declared that even though Jennifer was known for speaking her mind, and may have thought that everything said at the event was private, joking about the subject of rape was inexcusable. According to sources, Cuaron was amused by the incident at the time, and neither he nor Jennifer issued any kind of public reaction to the controversy.
Jennifer often describes herself as ‘clumsy’ and when it comes to her verbal blunders and pratfalls, it’s not hard to see why.
As she prepared for the Oscars a year after her famous fall, having been nominated a second consecutive year for American Hustle, Jennifer was asked if she felt confident. She had clearly not forgotten the disastrous moment that continued to haunt her: ‘Ha! Have you not seen my last Oscar moment? I handled myself so well! I think it’s really unfair to make a person speak in front of the entire world at a moment like that because it is just so overwhelming.
‘It was terrifying and what I regret now is not doing what you’re supposed to, which is even having a few words, something that you can say, or even some idea if they do call your name.
‘Every time my mind went there, I would feel so much anxiety that I couldn’t think about it. Then when they called me, I got up on stage and said happy birthday to Emmanuelle Riva from Amour, and then I walked off without even thanking David [Lawrence, the director], or Harvey Weinstein [the producer].’
Jennifer has dismissed any suggestion that her off-the-cuff acceptance speech, complete with the staircase stumble, was somehow planned or even charming. ‘It looked like I was drunk,’ she said to Deadline. ‘I did learn, though, not to let the dress gather in the front when you walk up the stairs.’
Despite acute embarrassment at the memory, Jennifer made the most of her big night, and one of the first people she saw when she walked into the Governors Ball after picking her Oscar was Wolfgang Puck, but it was she who was star-struck and not the celebrity chef who prepared the food for the lavish after-show party.
‘She didn’t know who I was,’ Puck said later. ‘Her publicist said, “That’s Wolfgang Puck!” She says, “Oh my God, I eat his canned soup all the time!” I thought that was very funny.’
Puck has been designing the menu for the ball for the past twenty-one years; and usually about 1,500 people attend the soirée, which immediately follows the Oscar telecast in a ballroom next to the Dolby Theatre. But following the lavish feast on offer, Jennifer admitted that she got drunk and was silently rebuked by pop star Miley Cyrus, who caught her throwing up at another of the many Oscars after-parties. Jennifer later told US talk show host Seth Meyers she never usually went to post-ceremony parties, but her best friend Laura Simpson had twisted her arm. ‘I’m just so sick of people by that point,’ she revealed. ‘But this time I was like, “I’m going out”. And I puked all over.’
She was outside the home of Madonna’s manager, Guy Oseary, at his annual Academy Awards bash when Cyrus caught her out. ‘If you get invited, you’re like, you know, super-important. I was in such bad condition and I look behind me while I’m puking and Miley Cyrus is there, [looking] like, “Get it together.”’
Earlier in the year, Laura Simpson had written about her experience as Jennifer’s date at the glitzy parties, complaining about the lack of food on offer at Hollywood events: ‘You are STARVING and haven’t had any food since breakfast at 9am,’ she wrote on Myspace. ‘The Academy really needs to spring for more hors d’oeuvres options because now everyone is hammered.’ Jennifer herself later revealed that she had tucked into a calorie-laden Philly cheesesteak right before she went to the 2011 Oscars.
And so it was hardly surprising that Jennifer was not looking forward to her next appearance at the Oscars. When asked by Deadline.com about whether she was excited about her red carpet preparations for 2014, when she would return to the Oscars to present the Best Actor award, Jennifer joked: ‘Exciting? I’m trying to go back to that place where dress fittings seemed exciting. I’ve had one fitting here in Atlanta and I think I have the final fitting on the day of the awards. So I just hope it fits.’
And in an interview for her Miss Dior campaign, Jennifer confessed that all she really wanted was to wear a dress that she could walk in. But that was not to say that she was unhappy in the previous year’s exquisite frothy white gown, which she chose from hundreds of others on offer. ‘I saw a picture of it from the runway and it was just the most beautiful dress I think I had ever seen,’ she gushed.
And true to form, when she returned to present the Best Actor award to Matthew McConaughey for his role in Dallas Buyers Club, the blunders continued, proving that lightning can indeed strike twice.
But at least at the 2014 Oscars Jennifer tripped and fell early, even before the show started – on arrival, as she waved to fans while making her way along the red carpet! She later told ABC News correspondent Lara Spencer that it was not her fault as she had stumbled over an orange traffic cone on her way out of the car, despite having prepared by taking her red strapless gown for a test climb up a flight of stairs to avoid a repeat of the previous year’s disaster. ‘This year I actually did a stair test out on the back staircase and got it a little dusty, but it worked,’ she revealed. ‘But I did trip over a cone, so I guess I’m not safe.’
She added: ‘I’m terrible in heels. I can’t walk, and my feet are uncomfortable.’
In video footage that captured the awkward moment, Jennifer could be seen grabbing a woman standing in front of her as she stumbled to the floor. She then laughed it off as she made her way down the carpet.
And host Ellen DeGeneres brought up the infamous stumble during her opening monologue at the 2014 ceremony: ‘If you win tonight, I think we should bring you the Oscar,’ the comedienne joked.
Jennifer later told The New York Times: ‘That’s how I can go about life free as an idiot: because I have no idea what I’m doing.’
She was again dressed in Dior for the ceremony, after reportedly signing a three-year contract with the luxury fashion house rumoured to be worth between $15 and $20 million. Since 2012 she had been a spokesmodel for the high-end brand and was delighted to be continuing the partnership, which meant she did not have to choose between designers when it came to high-profile events – the deal meant Dior would always dress her, and the gowns would be tailored to fit her curves rather than Jennifer having to cut calories to fit into sample sizes.
She told W magazine: ‘By the time of the actual Oscars, I was so sick of fittings and trains and corsets and people asking, “What are you going to wear?”
‘I had to go on a diet, because at all the parties there’s champagne and hors d’oeuvres. I ate so much! I think I wore two Spanx on the night of the awards.’
And although she lost out at the Oscars for her supporting role as Rosalyn in American Hustle to 12 Years a Slave star Lupita Nyong’o, there was no rivalry and the two actresses went on to become good friends. The pair had come face-to-face for the first time at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Lupita told the Late Show’s David Letterman: ‘I met her at the SAG Awards and I turned around and she saw me at the same time I saw her, and she made this huge ridiculous face of shock. And she beat me to it, because had she not reacted like that, that would have been the look on my face!’
When Letterman called Jennifer ‘kooky’, Lupita defended her new pal, saying: ‘That’s what makes her so good! I just love the faces she makes!’
But it was Jennifer who won at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs that year. It was her second BAFTA nomination, and she did not attend the ceremony at Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House. The first time she had appeared at the star-studded London awards ceremony, however, Jennifer won British hearts by carrying on the tradition established by Brad Pitt in 2012, when she blew a kiss for the television audience after she was asked to do so by host Stephen Fry.
When her BAFTA triumph came, she beat Lupita Nyong’o, who was the hot favourite to win, as well as Julia Roberts, who had been nominated for August: Osage County, Oprah Winfrey for Lee Daniel’s The Butler, and Sally Hawkins for her role in Blue Jasmine.
But since Jennifer was not there to collect the gong from presenter Leonardo DiCaprio, her American Hustle director David O. Russell stepped in to accept the honour. It was the second major awards season event she had to miss as she continued shooting for both X-Men: Days of Future Past and the final Hunger Games films.
But she told Deadline.com that she was completely shocked when she discovered later that she had actually won since by that stage she had forgotten all about her nomination. ‘Oh, it was a big surprise,’ she said. ‘I didn’t remember that the BAFTAs were happening that day. I certainly did not think I was going to win one, so I put it out of my mind. So there I was, in the middle of being painted blue, and someone said, “You just won the BAFTA!” And I said, “Oh, go f**k yourself!” And then it turned out they were serious.’
Luckily she had prepared a few words for her director to read out to the audience gathered in London. Russell had them written down, but had committed her speech to memory, where he thanked her fellow actors, writers and of course himself, on behalf of Jennifer. She had also asked him to convey how much she enjoyed the opportunity to show ‘Heartbreak, romance, rebirth, music and life’.
Having been at the helm of two of Jennifer’s most successful movies – both Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle – David O. Russell offered a unique glimpse into his unconventional approach to movie-making in a subsequent interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.
Revealing that he likes to get up close and personal with his troupe of actors, including of course Jennifer and her frequent co-star Bradley Cooper, the director and screenwriter explained he prefers to accompany his cast on set with a small hand-held camera to capture their emotions, rather than sitting behind the crew watching the action unfold on a monitor, like many modern directors.
He said: ‘I like to be very close to my actors. I don’t like to be sat in what they call video village, which is often 100 yards or more away from the set.
‘I like to be close to them. I like them to feel me and me to feel them. I like to shoot with a small camera so I can be there.’
While most directors rely on the skills of teams of cameramen, Russell prefers to actually hold the camera himself. And a remarkable behind-the-scenes still from the shooting of American Hustle showed the director sprawled out on the back seat of a car as Jennifer Lawrence and Jack Huston sat in the front. As Jennifer, portraying Rosalyn Rosenfeld, glanced casually over her shoulder, Russell could be seen slumped behind her with a tiny camera and various pieces of equipment surrounding him. And the director explained that part of the reason behind their close bond is that Jennifer loved his somewhat unorthodox approach to filmmaking.
Opening up on his relationship with the Oscar-winning actress and her co-stars Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams and Christian Bale, he added: ‘Jennifer got used to it, she liked it a lot.
‘Jack Huston, who’s sitting with her, plays the man who romances her, so that’s the scene they were shooting. It’s great when I have an intuitive connection with the actors and they inspire me to write roles for them. I wrote for Jennifer, I wrote for Bradley, I wrote for Christian and Amy.
‘I talked to them and said, “Let’s create a role that’s worthy of you being involved”. I’m privileged to have their friendship.’
But The Daily Show host Jon Stewart offered a fair amount of ribbing for the somewhat quirky direction method. He joked: ‘You look like you are chaperoning a terrible date. You are the director and you look like they are smuggling you into Tijuana.’
But the crew brushed off any criticism for the way the film was made, and fellow nominee Michael Wilkinson, the Australian costumer designer, was among the many who sang Jennifer’s praises. Wilkinson told how he and his team went with both vintage and newly made clothes for Jennifer’s appearance in Russell’s frantic, freewheeling seventies heist flick.
‘Jennifer and I had fun with the character,’ Wilkinson explained. ‘We really wanted there to be something always not quite right about the way she dressed, and for her often to be overdressed, underdressed, not dressed appropriately for a situation, wearing things that really didn’t work so well for her body.
‘The script is just so wildly vibrant and complex and interesting, and I really wanted to make sure that my costume choices were up to standard,’ Wilkinson added at an Oscar nominees’ luncheon in Beverly Hills.
‘And David really encouraged me to go very deep with my design work and kind of outside of my usual scope and thinking outside the box.’
Perhaps the most memorable outfit Jennifer wore was the very tight white gown in the big casino scene, which exposed more of her body than she usually likes to show. ‘The cleavage is extremely plunging,’ Wilkinson continued. ‘We kind of liked the idea that you know: “Is she going to stay inside the dress? Is she going to, you know?” They had this amazing sense of electricity and danger.’
Thinking outside the box came rather naturally when dressing the unpredictable, off-kilter Rosalyn. Although Jennifer was at least a decade too young for the role of crazy-volatile housewife, as the part had been written, age had never been a problem before and once again she overcame that particular obstacle through the sheer force of her unstoppable talent.
It was lauded as her most unplugged performance, and wild fun to behold, even though some critics felt that the director who would clearly watch her do anything was hugely indulging her. Her wig-out to the Wings’ song, ‘Live and Let Die’, bafflement over a microwave, and the bathroom bitch-off with Amy Adams have already proved to be greatest-hits moments, in a film which so very nearly won Jennifer a second Oscar for her mantelpiece.