Jennifer Lawrence

Apocalyptic comedy isn’t exactly a conventional genre, but no one has ever described Don’t Look Up filmmaker Adam McKay, the mastermind behind Vice and The Big Short, as a conventional filmmaker. Which is precisely why Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence was so excited to sign on for the writer-director’s biting, bracing climate change satire. “I’ve wanted to work with him for years,” Lawrence says. “When I heard how he was tackling the climate crisis, it was genius. I read it, and it was perfect. It was hilarious. It was scary. I couldn’t say yes fast enough.”

Lawrence leads the world’s starriest cast (Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Timothée Chalamet, etc.) as astronomy PhD candidate Kate Dibiasky, the flame-haired Cassandra who valiantly tries to warn the world of impending doom, only to have her repeated calls to action fall on deaf ears. Turns out, most people can’t seem to be bothered that a comet the size of Mount Everest is on a collision course with Earth. 

It’s Lawrence’s first role since the highly sought-after actor chose to take a hiatus from Hollywood to focus on herself and other interests — getting married, starting a family, and serving on the board of RepresentUs, a nonpartisan, nonprofit devoted to ending political corruption, extremism, and gridlock in Washington D.C. (McKay is also a board member). Given the stratospheric trajectory of Lawrence’s career over the last decade, the respite was necessary. 

The star earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination at age 20 for her breakout role as Ree Dolly in 2010’s indie drama Winter’s Bone, and then went on to build an astonishing career in both mainstream blockbusters and critically acclaimed art house fare. She led The Hunger Games series and appeared in the X-Men franchise at the same time she established a long-running collaboration with filmmaker David O. Russell — she won the Best Actress Oscar for her work in the writer-director’s Silver Linings Playbook and was nominated again for her performances in two of his subsequent films, 2013’s American Hustle and 2015’s Joy.

“I’m happy I did that,” Lawrence says of taking time away. “It’s enriching my creative life so much more to have experiences to inform the creative process. It’s much better than living in The Truman Show and then going off and trying to play somebody who’s not living in The Truman Show.”

Don’t Look Now has received plenty of Oscar love as well, earning four nominations including Best Picture. Although Lawrence appreciates the industry recognition, she’s also hopeful that younger viewers will heed the film’s message to ignore inconsequential daily distractions and focus on what truly matters. “I hope that the takeaway is that we have to address the gigantic existential issues before we can start bickering about who should be president,” Lawrence says. “We have to set aside our smaller differences for the one thing that we all have in common, which is that we all need this planet. And you have to vote like it’s the most important thing in the world because it is. It literally is.”

Listen to the entire conversation on Present Company with Krista Smith.

Krista Smith: What about working with Adam McKay as a director exceeded your expectations? 
Jennifer Lawrence: He is the most brilliant person I’ve ever met. His intellect alone is jarring. I guess I wasn’t really surprised by the freedom — he knows what he wants and what he doesn’t want, so the vibe on set is so extremely relaxed. He doesn’t have anxiety around letting you try this or that because he knows the tone inside and out and is there to answer any question.

Is there excitement or anxiety when you know you’re going to be improvising in a scene?
JL: It’s anxiety-inducing, for sure, especially when you’re dealing with Jonah Hill, who’s an absolute master. But the way that Adam does it is really helpful because he can tailor his talent for whoever he’s dealing with. He just let Jonah go. For some people, he would call things out on set. Adam and I, face to face, would just go back and forth, and try different iterations [of a scene]. Whichever one ended up being the funniest, we would go and try that.

I watched the Meryl Streep outtake of her improving 20 different responses to that one  phone call in that big Oval Office scene.
JL: She did that completely on her own. Every take was different. Of all the things that you are preparing for when you’re going to meet and work with Meryl Streep, funny is not [what you’re expecting]. You’re like, What? You are also a comedic and improv genius?

She really is the GOAT. I heard that she didn’t even know what the GOAT was — which makes her even more the GOAT. Meryl thought that she was just being referred to as “that old goat” on set. 
JL: And she was totally okay with that. Jonah was obviously horrified because he was the one that called her the GOAT the most.

Let’s talk about Kate’s look — the bang, the sweater, the jacket. Take me through it.
JL: Well, [costume designer] Susan Matheson has been working with Adam McKay for years, and she’s brilliant. We had so much fun with Kate because it was obviously a very different character for me. I spoke to another astronomer and was just like, What’s a girl’s vibe in this class? [Women are], like, under 2%. It’s very heavily male. So, if you’re a female going into this world, do you want to disappear? Do you want to stick out? Obviously, I knew from reading the script, Kate is definitely not one to hide in the shadows. So, it was fun to start getting into the mindset of somebody who wants to make a statement with their look, who is younger than I am. We started with T-shirts, just [figuring out] what is her basic T-shirt? From there, we got into the hardware on her nose and on her ears. Then the wig — I don’t know how to describe how it felt when we were trying all these different colors and these different cuts. I’m in a bald cap, and they just keep sliding them on. That one went on, and I was like, Oh my God! There she is.

As you’ve said, there are not a lot of women in this field. Did you do a lot of research to get into character?
JL: No, Leo did. You can definitely tell the difference in our performances. I obviously wanted to know what I was saying in a general way and make sure that I was prepared. By the time I met up with Leo, he was like, Well, I just wrote out six pages on the Oort cloud. I was like, Oh, okay. I’m not prepared.

Talking about Leo, how was it to work with him?
JL: Wonderful. He is so sweet and professional and really fun to work with because it’s just easy. He really is such a gifted actor and a complete dork, all wrapped into one piercing-blue-eyed little package. He delivers every time. I also can’t express enough how sweet he is. I wouldn’t have expected it. It was like Meryl being funny. Leo is a very sweet, kind person.

You’ve got one juggernaut in Leo. Then you have this other blisteringly talented kid, Timothée Chalamet, and in the middle, you have brilliant Jennifer Lawrence. Timothée — talk to me about him because you have some very funny and very touching scenes together.
JL: He’s a fireball of talent. I felt so old and maternal, that it was hilarious to have us playing romantic partners — I literally felt like his babysitter or his mother on set. I know that Leo felt a similar way. We both had similar experiences to [what he’s going through with] everything really exploding and happening really fast. We were like, We’ve got to take this guy under our wing and make sure he’s okay. I don’t know. I felt like I was kissing somebody that I was babysitting who is immensely talented.

I remember seeing you in The Poker House — you played Selma Blair’s oldest daughter in that film. The next time I saw you was at Sundance with Winter’s Bone. It’s been amazing to watch this entire career unfold. When you were taking time away, did you look back on any of that stuff? How do you view the last 10 years of your life?
JL: I don’t know. It’s so hard because the last ten years, just going from being a teenager, through your twenties and then entering your thirties, your brain changes so much. You don’t really feel something like fame because it’s happening to you. It’s impossible to digest. You have to [process] everything as it’s happening: Okay, this person is treating me this way. These people are following me. I can’t say this kind of stuff on interviews anymore. Having an artistic outlet was so helpful to me in that time of trying to adjust to this weird life, while also trying to please my parents and all the normal things that come with growing as a twentysomething. I’m so happy I had the structure of The Hunger Games and X-Men to focus on and put a lot of that energy into. I then came out of it and was like, What’s life? What is all of this? I don’t know. Looking back on it, it’s impossible to comprehend.

Now, you’re back and working and promoting a movie while pregnant — you had that fantastic moment on the red carpet. Your dress was gorgeous.
JL: It had been so many years since I had done a red carpet. Anytime I’m on TikTok, if there’s anything of me in my early twenties that comes up, I cannot watch it. I’m so hyper. [This time], I was like, I’m going to go to the premiere. I’m going to be very serious. I’m going to be grown up. And there was one single second where Jonah was making fun of me because I ended up being there first. I was standing there, and Jonah was like, Look at J.L. She loves it. She loves it. And I flung out my arms for one second, and, of course, that picture was everywhere. It was really, really embarrassing. So, that was my takeaway from the red carpet. But yes, that dress was so nice. Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior designed my wedding dress, and then she designed that dress for my first pregnancy.

Alright, TikTok. I’ve got to know — what’s in your algorithm?
JL: My algorithm is baby goats. It’s basically just farm life. Cats, animals, farm life, a couple recipes, but really it’s pretty much strictly animals. There is this mommy farmer — her goat had triplets and there was a really tiny one that we didn’t think was going to make it through the night. And she did. Her name is Ruthie, and she is doing beautifully.