Jennifer Lawrence

by Nadia Cohen

  Almost 75,000 people around the world responded to the survey by AshleyMadison.com, an extramarital affairs website, examining how technology affected trends in sexual behaviour.

  ‘Technology has revolutionised so many facets of life, including infidelity, that it is no surprise to see habits changing in response to these major violations of individuals’ privacy,’ said spokesman Christoph Kraemer.

  But the research also found that two thirds of men and women, despite the online scandal, still sexted with the same frequency, with an overall increase in 2014.

  Globally, more women (79.6 per cent) than men (87.2 per cent) say they sext – but in the UK almost 10 per cent fewer women admit to the practice, with a similar proportion of British men sexting. Almost half of those surveyed also confessed to sexting on the job, with 46 per cent of men (a 2.5 per cent increase) and 40 per cent of women (7.5 per cent increase) admitting to sending sexts during working hours.

  For months the police continued to hunt for those responsible for embarrassing so many unwitting celebrities. In June 2015, FBI agents raided the Chicago home of Emilio Herrera whose IP address was allegedly used to hack more than 500 iCloud accounts, including Jennifer’s.

  Special agent Josh Sedowsky wrote in official FBI documents, ‘Based on victim account records obtained by Apple, one or more computers at Herrera’s house accessed or attempted to access without authorisation multiple celebrities’ email and iCloud accounts over the course of several months.’ As well as Jennifer, the documents listed other victims including actresses Christina Hendricks, Olivia Wilde and Amber Heard.

  But at the time of writing, Herrera had not been charged with any crimes, and Jennifer had refused to comment on the news. She had already made her feelings perfectly clear on the subject with her customary directness and dignity.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A POP STAR IN THE MAKING

  One thing that Jennifer and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin have in common is a shared love of music, and it can be no coincidence that their romance started to blossom just as she recorded her first single – ‘The Hanging Tree’, a haunting folk song taken from the soundtrack of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

  For many actors, the moment that the last instalment of a franchise hits the cinemas can be a difficult stage in their career, as they find themselves wondering if they can continue their early success.

  When the stars of Harry Potter, including Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, or Twilight’s Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson reached the end of the blockbuster film series that made them stars, they had to prove to Hollywood that they were more than just the lucky beneficiaries of can’t-miss roles, and battle to be taken seriously as adults, and not to be typecast in the same kind of roles.

  Jennifer was not to be faced with that problem, however, thanks to strong performances in a variety of movies like X-Men, American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook, as well as revealing hidden musical talents. On top of trying her hand at action, comedy and drama, she was also smart enough to branch out, setting her sights on the music world, after her debut release triumphed in the music charts around the world.

  ‘The Hanging Tree’ landed at Number 12 on America’s Billboard Hot 100, raking in more than 200,000 downloads within its first few days. It went on to sell over 1.1 million copies, and Jennifer also scored a Top 20 hit in the UK charts.

  In the film, her character Katniss Everdeen performed the song she had learnt from her father. Her rendition the haunting, bluesy piece, which became a rallying cry for rebellion in the Districts, was seen as one of the more moving sequences.

  The song, which also appears on the film’s official soundtrack, was written by The Lumineers’ Jeremiah Fraites and Wesley Schultz, with lyrics by Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins.

  Schultz told Billboard that Mockingjay director Francis Lawrence explained to him that the song had ‘to be something that can be hummed or sung by one person [or] by a thousand people’ and that it couldn’t be ‘overly complicated’.

  He added: ‘It’s supposed to almost feel like a nursery rhyme, innocent, even though it has a really dark undertone to it.’

  Schultz and Fraites submitted several melodies in September 2013, and Schultz recalled producers eventually choosing one and telling them: ‘This one seems promising, let’s do this.’

  But the pair were still not sure their tune would be used in such a big movie, and they assumed there were other, far more famous songwriters in the running: ‘Probably a lot of people were trying to write a melody. I just don’t think we really had our hopes up.’

  Despite their lack of confidence the song’s use in the film clearly moved audiences, who downloaded it in their droves.

  ‘The first time that I heard it was going to be [officially in the film] was through Francis Lawrence,’ Schultz added. ‘He texted us and said, “It worked out great in the movie. We just shot the scene. Jen was really nervous but it went great.”’

  Jennifer suddenly found herself climbing high in the charts, just behind the likes of Taylor Swift, who was Number 1 for a third week running with her song, ‘Blank Space’, and Maroon 5, who took the fifth spot for ‘Animals’.

  The song even beat the film’s official pop single, Lorde’s ‘Yellow Flicker Beat’. And according to Billboard, Jennifer was the thirteenth Oscar winner to grab a spot on the list, sharing the honour with superstars Bing Crosby, Julie Andrews, Cher, Jamie Foxx, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Hudson.

  ‘The Hanging Tree’ also made it on to the UK music charts, and reached Number 8 on the midweek iTunes countdown, even though it had not yet been officially released as a single at that point.

  Jennifer was stunned when she heard that she had beaten Meghan Trainor’s ‘Lips Are Moving’, the Jessie J/Ariana Grande/Nicki Minaj collaboration, ‘Bang Bang’, and Beyoncé’s ‘7/11’. The chart placing proved a massive shock for the actress, who had broken down in tears before filming her singing scene because she was dreading it so much.

  Francis Lawrence explained to Radio Times magazine: ‘She was horrified to sing. She cried a little bit in the morning before [the scene]. She’d probably tell you it was her least favourite day on set.

  ‘She’ll probably never really understand it because she’s so sensitive about the singing, but she did it and she did it all day, and she hated me for making her do it all day, but she did and it’s great.’

  Jennifer was so nervous before her performance that she refused to even show off her voice in rehearsals. The director continued: ‘We had a vocal coach, who sort of shifted the key for Jen’s voice. Then she started working with Jen once or twice. Jen didn’t really want to do too much of the training. I was worried, I really thought we were going to have to do a bunch of pitch shifting, but she sounded great.

  ‘What you hear in the movie is what she did on the day in the quarry.’

  The movie, the third instalment of the hit fantasy series, shot to the top of the US box office as soon as it was released in November 2014, with early takings of over $122 million, and it fared equally well in the UK, raking in over £12 million within its first few days on the big screen.

  But apparently Jennifer had been scarred by a childhood experience in which her mother – trying to be supportive – had encouraged her to sing in front of her entire school. Jennifer later claimed the performance was a total embarrassment. She had only been eight years old when she belted out ‘Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas’, and the actress admitted that even her father laughed for days about her rendition of the catchy Christmas song.

  So when she learned that her character Katniss would have to perform a song in the film, Jennifer apparently broke down in tears at the memory of the last time she had sung in front of an audience. It seemed she refused to even listen to the song, but she has recounted the ‘traumatic’ story of eventually having to sing it in front of the rest of the cast and crew.

  In a television interview with David Letterman she explained: �
��I don’t like singing in front of people. It’s my biggest fear. I cried on set. I sang “The Hanging Tree”, which is where I felt like going.’

  Time and again she has admitted in interviews that singing on the film was the most terrifying thing she has ever done. ‘I can’t stand singing. The idea of singing in front of people is my biggest fear in the entire world. I cried the day that I did that,’ she told HitFix. ‘I was shaking. I was like, “I want my mom.” I’ve never listened to it. When that scene comes on, I plug my ears.

  ‘I cried on set that day and apparently I’m crying all the time,’ she added. ‘I’m like, scarred from my childhood because I have a Southern mother who would just tell me that I was amazing at everything, that I could do everything. But, I can’t.’

  Jennifer also told The New York Times an anecdote about how she felt she has always had a ‘tone-deaf Amy Winehouse’ voice, adding: ‘I think I sound like a hermit, a deep, chain-smoking hermit.’

  And when asked about it on Saturday Night Live she said that her singing sounded like ‘a deer that has been caught in a fence’.

  But Francis Lawrence defended his leading lady’s talents, adding: ‘There are very few times when Jen gets nervous about stuff she has to do on set, and the singing was that kind of a thing. I knew she didn’t love the idea of singing, but I didn’t realise how nervous she was until when we started the first take, and she was in tears.

  ‘Not totally broken down, but she was unhappy. I didn’t have to talk her into it, she was going to do it, she knew it was her job, but she just wasn’t happy about it. “Oh man, I’ve got to actually sing! In front of 150 people!”

  ‘She would have much rather we used somebody else’s voice. I think she said she wanted Lorde to do it! But see, the thing on top of all of it is, it shouldn’t sound like a professional. It should sound like a real girl singing. So she did it. She did it all day.

  ‘And she has a really cool sound to her voice. There’s kind of a raspy texture to it. So it was not terrible in the slightest.’

  Jennifer may have been modest about her success but everyone heard the song, whether they liked it or not. During an interview with Ryan Seacrest on E!’s Live From the Red Carpet ahead of the 2015 Oscars, Josh Hutcherson, who was presenting at the ceremony, was asked whether or not he had ‘The Hanging Tree’ on his phone, and the actor admitted that Jennifer had made sure of it: ‘It is, because Jennifer bought it and put it on my phone for me,’ he revealed.

  The song was an instant hit with audiences and critics alike as soon as it was released, but it gathered further momentum after Jared Piccone, aka Spacebrother, remixed it for radio in an up-tempo dance number by DJ Michael Gazzo.

  Gazzo told Entertainment Weekly: ‘Currently topping the charts in almost every single country, the track was a no brainer when it came to remixing!

  ‘My take on “Hanging Tree” is much lighter, and listener-friendly. Although the nature of the track is dark, I envisioned it uplifting an entire group of people to rise up. To unite.’

  Jennifer has since struck up a friendship with pop star Lorde, who recorded the official song for the film, ‘Yellow Flicker Beat’. The track went on to become so popular that it has won Lorde a nomination for a Golden Globe in the category of Best Original Song. It has also been shortlisted for an Oscar.

  In an interview with the LA Times in December 2014, Lorde not only described what she went through while composing this song but also revealed that looking at Jennifer’s face inspired her most empowering line. The New Zealand born singer talked about the idea behind the composition, saying: ‘I liked the idea of the film ending on this close-up of Katniss’ face, and then this very creepy, cracked hum kind of signalling your entry into her head, her deepest thoughts and secrets,’ she told The Los Angeles Times.

  She told how she was inspired by a lot of spiritual songs, including ‘Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child’: ‘I wanted the song to feel almost stream-of-consciousness, very much Katniss’ innermost thoughts, and when writing it, I could feel the lines blurring, my authorial voice overlapping with hers.’

  Lorde also believes that Jennifer’s character has so many voices that are both ‘internal and external’. She compared her voice to a storm that is not quiet, and quoted her favourite line from her song, which is: ‘Fingers laced together and I made a little prison, and I’m locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me.’

  Jennifer may not like to sing, but she may just be the world’s most reluctant pop star now.

  CHAPTER NINE

  STRIKE A POSE

  As well as the professional recognition she started receiving from the early days of her career as an actress and a singer, Jennifer was soon also being lauded for her movie-star good looks.

  Her fresh-faced appeal and natural curves made her popular with fans, as well as the notoriously hard-to-please fashion world, and lucrative modelling contracts and style accolades began to come her way.

  British magazine Glamour crowned Jennifer the best-dressed woman in the world in its ‘50 Best Dressed Women 2014’ list. The magazine said that she effortlessly made a Dior gown look as comfortable as sweatpants, and that she somehow pulled off looking equally great in both.

  But she has never let the praise go to her head and Jennifer always manages to remain modest about her looks, claiming none of it comes naturally. At one awards show she joked: ‘Oh, it takes about four and a half hours and hundreds of dollars and professionals. You too can look like this,’ she told Entertainment Tonight when asked for details of her red carpet preparations. ‘I have an amazing team at Dior and I have a whole pit crew that put their blood, sweat and tears into making me look like this.’

  Even when she had her long hair cut into a shoulder-length bob, which sparked headlines across the world, she made a typically self-deprecating joke about how bad it looked, saying: ‘It grew to an awkward gross length, and I kept putting it back in a bun and I was like, “I don’t want to do this,” so I just cut it off,’ adding, ‘It couldn’t get any uglier.’

  As a child Jennifer was never particularly girly and so, as stunning as she may appear on the red carpet these days, she found dressing up for glamorous fashion-heavy events awkward and uncomfortable when she first found herself in the public eye: ‘I hated dressing up for my first red carpets, because I never felt comfortable in these glamorous dresses,’ she told French magazine Madame Figaro.

  Growing up in Kentucky, she spent her time riding horses and wrestling with her brothers Ben and Blaine, not fawning over fashion magazines and the latest looks.

  ‘In Louisville, when I was a child, I inherited clothes from my two older brothers that I put together with things that my mother dug out of yard sales,’ she confessed, adding, ‘I was a true tomboy.’

  So when she was approached to be the face of Dior – talks began in 2011 and she was offered millions to appear in their global fashion and accessories advertising campaigns for at least the next three years – Jennifer hesitated at first: ‘At the beginning I told everyone, “I’m an actress. I’m not a model. I don’t want to do it.”’

  But eventually she agreed, choosing Dior over dozens of other endorsement deals that she was being offered at the time, and she has been under contract to the French luxury house since 2012, when it was announced that she would replace actress Mila Kunis as the face of the Miss Dior handbag line. As well as the $3 million she was paid, Jennifer was also given her pick of the designer’s dresses and handbags, which she is seen wearing to almost every high-profile event she attends.

  Some of those in the fashion industry were surprised by Dior’s choice, as Jennifer had not been known for being particularly on-trend until then, but chief designer Raf Simons said of his choice at the time that he had been stunned by Jennifer: ‘Her youth and her classic beauty, but also her force of character and also the feminine strength and complexity she’s capable of embodying at such a young age are for me very unique and very appealing.’

&n
bsp; Jennifer may not have been the obvious choice at the time, but gradually she has settled into her role as a high-profile spokesmodel. ‘Now I get the haute couture thing,’ she explained later. ‘It’s a big deal. I don’t know what “haute” means, but I have to say it.

  ‘It is only recently that I discovered the beauty of haute couture. The first Dior collection I attended by Raf Simons blew me away.’

  When the first set of campaign shots, taken by legendary fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier, were released in 2013, Jennifer looked amazing. But she was suitably modest when it emerged that the photos had been controversially retouched to enhance her figure – Dior was accused of digitally altering Jennifer’s shoulders to make them appear drastically narrower in a campaign.

  But while many critics were outraged by the move, Jennifer herself was delighted, and she told Access Hollywood: ‘I love Photoshop more than anything in the world. Of course it’s Photoshop – people don’t look like that.’

  Now, despite her jokes, wearing high fashion has become second nature to Jennifer, and, like many other women, she has even found herself unable to live without an oversized purse on her arm: ‘I have an enormous one, nicknamed “The Flagship”, which I lug around everywhere and everything is in there,’ she admitted. ‘My basics? Lollipops for my nephews, my wallet, my passport, my phone, and a collection of lip balms and pens. Since they always fall to the bottom, I forget and buy new ones, non-stop.’

  In another campaign for Be Dior, launched in February 2015, Jennifer looked stunning in the photos by Paolo Roversi, but admitted that she is surprisingly very low maintenance for a movie star who has reluctantly become a style icon. Asked again what she keeps in her designer handbag, she told Woman’s Wear Daily: ‘Wallet, phone, keys – if I can remember them – ChapStick and a little perfume.’