by Nadia Cohen
Jennifer also planned to take on more producing later in the year, and agreed to simultaneously produce and star in the film of The Glass Castle. In an interview with The Associated Press she said that her mother Karen had encouraged her to read the gripping life story of former gossip columnist Jeannette Walls.
Jennifer said: ‘I’ve always wanted to produce, because I remember when I would read these incredible scripts that would never see the light of day and then I’d drive through Westwood and see some of the crap that was coming out. And I was like, “What is going on in the world?”
‘So I’ve always wanted to produce. And Glass Castle being my first project is perfect because I was just so moved by that book. My mother is like the lucky charm with these kinds of things. She read Winter’s Bone and Hunger Games and when I read The Glass Castle I thought it was amazing, so we found Gil Netter, the producer who had the rights to the book. He and I started talking and now we are developing. We have a director and a writer and it’s getting going.’
And in 2016 Jennifer is scheduled to reprise her superhero role in X-Men: Apocalypse, playing the role of Raven/Mystique again. But she revealed that it would be her final appearance in the sci-fi series, having taken over the role from Rebecca Romijn. Speaking at a screening of Serena in March 2015, Jennifer confirmed: ‘It is my last one, actually.’ Nicholas Hoult had also indicated that the film would be his last outing as Beast, but he would continue if he had the choice.
Speaking to E! Online, Jennifer’s former boyfriend revealed: ‘This is the last one I’m signed up for. The first one did so well and Days of Future Past got received so brilliantly. It’s like, “Wow, people really want to see the films”, and the best thing is it’s a great crew and cast to work with and he’s a fun character. I have a good time playing him so I’d keep making them.’
After Jennifer announced she would be stepping down, and leaving the X-Men franchise for good, director Bryan Singer started the search for another main female lead. And in April 2015 he cast Olivia Munn to play the ninja telepath Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse. He made the announcement via Instagram, with Hollywood insiders immediately predicting Munn’s career would rocket just as Jennifer’s had done after appearing as Mystique in X-Men: First Class.
It was also reported that Jennifer and Chris Pratt – star of Guardians of the Galaxy and The Lego Movie – were in talks with Sony Pictures to board the upcoming sci-fi drama Passengers.
In fact Passengers has been in development for years and has yet to lock down its leads. Back in 2013, Rachel McAdams and Keanu Reeves were the rumoured stars, with Game of Thrones director Brian Kirk at the helm. Before that Reese Witherspoon was in talks with the studio. All three actors have since dropped out.
‘Passengers is set on a spacecraft in the future, with thousands of passengers making an interstellar voyage to a distant new planet,’ reported industry magazine Variety in early 2015. ‘One passenger awakens from cryogenic sleep ninety years before anyone else and decides to wake up a female passenger, sparking the beginning of a love story.’
According to Variety, Morten Tyldum, who was behind Oscar-nominated drama The Imitation Game (2014), was hoping to land the directing job. Tyldum had been nominated for an Oscar and a Directors Guild award for his work on The Imitation Game, the Second World War period drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch as code-cracking hero Alan Turing.
Industry insiders hope that Passengers will echo the huge box-office success of recent space dramas such as Interstellar (2014) and Gravity (2013) – the latter also being the recipient of seven Oscars.
Around this time Jennifer was being linked to so many films that there was widespread surprise that she was not considered for Paul Feig’s upcoming remake of the Ghostbusters’ movie, this time with an all-female cast.
True to form, Jennifer made a joke about the perceived snub: ‘I didn’t know there was a Ghostbusters 2. Who’s in 2? Are you serious? Oh, my God! Sequels are never as good,’ she said, bursting into laughter when she realised that she was actually promoting a sequel at the time (the sequel being Mockingjay: Part 1).
But Jennifer was too busy to dwell on the one that got away; she was also due to team up with Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg for a biopic about a veteran war photographer. Warner Bros. Studio was hammering out a deal for her to star in the film version of the memoir It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War.
Lynsey Addario penned the memoir about her assignments in conflict zones, including Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. According to Deadline, big-name producers were battling for the rights to the story after extracts were published in The New York Times Magazine. Bidders included Working Title Films, who had Reese Witherspoon attached to the lead role, and Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), who wanted the movie for Natalie Portman. The Weinstein Company was also bidding, with George Clooney and Grant Heslov involved. Margo Robbie, too, was reportedly hoping to buy the rights to the film.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist had met with various hopeful bidders and impressed them all with details of her personal and professional life. Addario has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, the Congo and Haiti and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek and National Geographic.
Warner Bros. eventually won the rights, casting Jennifer as Addario, who admitted she was concerned about Hollywood’s tendency to sensationalise: ‘That’s why I went to great lengths to figure out who I would option the book with. I feel pretty confident about the team I’ve ended up going with. There’s no guarantee it will be exactly the truth, but the goal for the movie is to tell people what it is that we do as journalists, what our lives are really like, and what the lives of the people we cover are really like.
‘I think there’s a great disparity between what people perceive and what the reality is, and if we can reach a much larger public with a Hollywood film, then let’s try it.’
With an upcoming movie, Addario is now a wealthy woman, but Jennifer was impressed to learn that she has no plans to give up her dangerous job. Addario told the British Journal of Photography: ‘It’s hard for me when people ask “Why do you do this work, why would you risk your life?” I don’t really have an intellectual answer, because anyone who does this work understands that it’s beyond them, it’s like a calling that overtakes you. The only thing I’ve come up with is, “It’s what I do and it’s who I am”.’
There have been rumours linking Jennifer to a Star Wars spin-off project, as well as hints that she is set to play a video game heroine in The Legend of Zelda. And on the subject of princesses, another suggestion was that she would replace Kristen Bell in Frozen 2, following the success of her song, ‘The Hanging Tree’.
And Jennifer is also being linked to future plans for a big-screen epic adaptation of The Odyssey being developed by Lionsgate films and possibly directed by Francis Lawrence.
She is even due to cash in on the opening of a Hunger Games theme park in Dubai. Lionsgate announced in April 2015 that it would be partnering Dubai Parks and Resorts to bring the film to life via a gigantic theme park scheduled to open in October 2016. Motiongate Dubai, a Hollywood-themed attraction, would feature Hunger Games-inspired attractions and retail facilities. The 4-million-square-foot facility is expected to attract more than 3 million visitors a year, and would include a live stage show and animation zone.
It was also reported that Jennifer would be playing Hearst publishing empire heiress-turned-activist Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped in 1974 by a student-led group called the Symbionese Liberation Army, who were campaigning for the release of black prisoners. In one of the most well-documented cases of Stockholm syndrome ever, Hearst was brainwashed into supporting her captors’ cause, going on to appear in the group’s propaganda videos and taking part in illegal activities. She changed her name to Tania and fashioned herself as a machine-gun-toting guerilla warrior. But she was eventually arrested after staging an elabo
rate bank robbery to support her newfound cause. She was put on trial and later pardoned by President Jimmy Carter.
CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin has written a so-far untitled book about Hearst’s young life and 20th Century Fox is developing a screenplay with Jennifer in mind.
Critics suggested she would be perfect for the role since she had played a heroic warrior in Hunger Games, was emotionally vulnerable in Silver Linings Playbook and made a convincing sultry femme fatale in American Hustle.
If all this should come to pass, then it looks as though Jennifer will not be taking a break for a very long time to come.
Rolling Stone magazine declared Jennifer to be ‘The most talented actress in America’ and Time listed her as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
Elle announced she was the Most Powerful Woman in the Entertainment Industry, and she found herself ranked Number 1 on Ask Men’s list of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women of the Year.
As well as all her other acting awards, gongs and trophies, Jennifer also found herself ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the World’s Most Powerful Celebrities and the second Most Powerful Actress on the Planet – beating many more far more established actresses including the likes of Angelina Jolie to the top spot. She is now the second highest paid actress in Hollywood, just behind Sandra Bullock, whose career began two decades earlier.
Jennifer is also due to appear in the Guinness World Records for having scooped so many awards in such a short space of time.
And so, the question is, what next for the girl who went from a seemingly disastrous fashion photo shoot for Abercrombie & Fitch to a handful of little-known indie films to being known around the globe as the Girl on Fire in the most successful franchise of all time?
She has hinted that she would love to work behind the cameras: ‘I’ve always wanted to direct,’ she told Vanity Fair. ‘Ever since The Poker House. Lori Petty was directing and I was imagining being a director. I love filmmaking. I love acting, but I don’t feel married to being in front of the camera.’
Jennifer is already signed on to produce a few films, but before all that all she really wants is a break from her hectic schedule, which has seen her work back to back since she first found fame in 2008.
‘I want my life as normal as possible,’ she has said. ‘One of the dangers in the film industry is that things are too fast, aging. I do not want to burn the stages of my life.’
And with the coming years mapped out for her, it is hardly surprising that Jennifer said she would love to take a well-earned break from filming to get a rest, but with so many projects in the pipeline, it is unclear when this may come.
In some of her more revealing interviews, Jennifer has wistfully suggested that all she really longs for is to buy a house where she can actually spend more than a few days at a time and disappear off the radar. Being so instantly recognisable, the one thing she craves is anonymity and privacy; her dream is to simply vanish far from the intense glare of the public eye.
Until now she has managed to keep her feet firmly on the ground, in a refreshingly honest and candid way, but the demands on her time are relentless. She has said she misses being able to relax on the sofa, watching her beloved reality TV shows, and the freedom to ride horses as she did as a child.
Luckily she is surrounded by the strong bonds of her loving family, who do their best to ensure that she returns as often as possible to her childhood home where she can enjoy some peace and normality.
It was not so very long ago that she was enduring regular therapy sessions to tackle her crippling social anxieties and emotional disorders, so many would say time away from the intense grind of the Hollywood machine is essential before she breaks down, just as so many big name stars have done before her.
Paparazzi photographers and eager fans with camera phones hound Jennifer relentlessly and aggressively. Gossip columnists, magazine and TV shows speculate and dissect every dress she wears, every man she is seen with, and indeed every move she makes. She admits she does not feel at home in Los Angeles: one false step and it could all come crashing down around her.
Indeed she has said: ‘Louisville is actually really respectful. I can normally go out to dinner with my family and everybody is really nice about letting me have a nice experience. The only thing I’ll ever identify with as home is Louisville.’
She may still feel like the girl next door, but one thing is certain – Jennifer Lawrence is Hollywood royalty and as long as she continues to tread carefully, she seems destined to reign over her kingdom for many years to come.
A young Jennifer at the 2008 6th Annual Teen Vogue Hollywood Party in LA.
© Michael Buckner/Getty Images
The ‘over-the-shoulder’ pose before the screening of The Burning Plain in 2008.
© Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
Another screening, this time of Winter’s Bone in 2010.
© Alexandra Wyman/WireImage
There’s no getting away! Jennifer locks co-star Josh Hutcherson in a headlock as they attend The Hunger Games: Catching Fire premiere in Rome, 2013.
© Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
Jennifer with her fellow Hunger Games stars, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson and Elizabeth Banks at the London O2 Arena in 2012.
© Jon Furniss/WireImage
The Girl on Fire times two, at another 2013 premiere of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in Madrid.
© Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images
The curse of the Academy Awards: Jennifer falls over at the Oscars for the second year running, as she receives her award for Best Actress for her role in Silver Linings Playbook in 2013.
© Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Well worth falling over for, Jennifer shows off her Academy Award.
© Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
It’s not called the Late Show for nothing. Jen tucks herself in as she chats to David Letterman in 2013.
© Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS via Getty Images
Smiles all round; speaking onstage with her fellow Hunger Games star Elizabeth Banks at ELLE’s 21st Annual Women in Hollywood Celebration in 2014.
© Michael Buckner/Getty Images
Ready for the after party of the 2014 World Premiere of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 in London.
© David M. Benett/WireImage
The American Hustle stars smiling for the cameras, ready to win their Golden Globe awards in Beverly Hills, California, 2014.
© George Pimentel/WireImage
As glam as ever, Jennifer sits in the front row beside Dior CEO Sidney Toledano and fashion icon Emma Watson, during the 2014 Paris Fashion Week.
© Rindoff/Dufour/French Select/Getty Images
‘Am I over-dressed?’ Pippi rocks the bowtie, alongside a more casual Jen as she’s spotted in LA in June 2015.
© GVK/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Exchanging cheesy grins with Bradley Cooper at the after party of the March 2015 Serena screening in New York City.
© Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage
Still smiling with Josh and Liam on The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 panel at the 2015 Comic-Con International Santiago Convention.
© Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images
Jennifer Lawrence, the Girl on Fire.
© Getty Images
Copyright
Published by John Blake Publishing Limited
3 Bramber Court, 2 Bramber Road,
London W14 9PB, England
www.johnblakebooks.com
www.facebook.com/johnblakebooks
twitter.com/jblakebooks
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement o
f the author’s and publisher’s rights and those may be liable in law accordingly.
ePub ISBN 978 1 78606 090 7
Mobi ISBN 978 1 78606 091 4
PDF ISBN 978 1 78606 092 1
This edition published in 2016
ISBN: 978 1 78418 974 7
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by www.envydesign.co.uk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
© Text Nadia Cohen 2016
The rights of Nadia Cohen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Papers used by John Blake Publishing are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.