After years of being one of the most in-demand actresses on the planet, Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence got married, had a child, and took a long break from acting that lasted nearly two years. While she already appeared in Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Back,” last year, that was a supporting role that she didn’t do a full-court press for. Now, it seems like she’s fully integrating herself into traditional press and publicity appearances this year thanks to her lead performance in the upcoming Apple TV+ drama, “Causeway,” where she stars as an ex-soldier grappling with PTSD and a brain injury (read our review).
READ MORE: Jennifer Lawrence Says She Wants To Work With Ari Aster, Leos Carax & The Coen Brothers
And pardon the pun, but where’s her head at these days? Well, it seems like it’s mostly away from the mainstream and franchises. In a recent Vanity Fair video interview, she rattled off a list of names of the filmmakers she would love to work with. They included Ari Aster, Leos Carax, and the Coen Brothers, all indie, arthouse, or non-mainstream filmmakers.
This weekend at the London Film Festival, where she is promoting “Causeway,” she underscored the desire to work with artistic directors by announcing that she’s developing a film project with Lynne Ramsay.
“It felt serendipitous to have the first film in my production company be an independent film [like ‘Causeway’],” Lawrence said in a public LFF talk recounted by ScreenDaily. “The best part about producing is I can just span out – I’m developing something with Lynne Ramsay; I’m obsessed with Lynne Ramsay.”
While Lawrence didn’t give any details, Ramsay is one of Scotland’s premiere filmmakers and arguably one of the best filmmakers in the world. But her work can be challenging, and over twenty years, she’s only directed four films, “Ratcatcher” (1999), “Morvern Callar” (2002), “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (2011), and “You Were Never Really Here” (2017) starring Joaquin Phoenix.
It’s usually actors like Phoenix or Tilda Swinton in ‘Kevin’ who gets her the financing for these projects, so hopefully, with Lawrence attached to something, we don’t have to wait several years for a new Lynne Ramsay film.
While Lawrence says “franchise is art,” and she had fun making films like the “X-Men” series, but she suggested she is done with that world now. “I could never do one now because I’m too old and brittle.”
She also sounded as if she somewhat resented the period after being in big franchise films and that vortex of publicity spinning her life out of control.
“I think I lost a sense of control,” she said via Variety.” Between ‘The Hunger Games’ coming out and winning the Oscar , I became such a commodity that I felt like every decision was a big, big group decision. When I reflect now, I can’t think of those following years [because there was] just a loss of control.”
With her footing seemingly regained—the break from Hollywood obviously helping—it’s exciting the prospect of seeing a new chapter of Lawrence’s career where she works with fascinating filmmakers, perhaps giving projects that were too difficult to get made a new lease on life.
