.
Lawrence is in town for a few days before heading to Montreal to finish shooting X-Men: Apocalypse, out
this month. She tries to be a low-key presence in New York, but the
city finds her anyway. A couple of nights earlier, on Valentine's Day,
she went out for dinner in Brooklyn with her friend comic Aziz Ansari.
Lawrence's dinners—Adele! Emma Stone!—and friends—Amy Schumer! Lena
Dunham!—are manna for media heaven, but this one was special order.
According to breathless tabloid reports, Lawrence ate a "sandwich dipped
in ketchup." ("Um, a sandwich dipped in ketchup is a cheeseburger," she
observes.) "It was the one night I could see Aziz. For Valentine's he
got me a stuffed animal, and I got him a 'That's So Raven' Valentine's
Day card."
That, it
would seem, is the extent of Lawrence's "romantic" life at present.
However, ask if she's having a frisson with anyone and she goes pink,
and is suddenly, strugglingly, silent. "There's frisson all over my
face," she jokes. "I can't! Anything I say about boys gets picked up."
She will admit that she doesn't have a type. "I don't think so because
patterns are the work of the devil." She lets out her bellowing laugh.
"If I think about all of my ex-boyfriends, they are all so
uncomparable." Lawrence has been single for a while, although from her
demeanor perhaps this will be short-lived. But as of now: "Sex? Someone
explain to me what it is."
Lawrence
doesn't need anything explained to her—she is at the peak of her
powers. Her confidence is palpable, her conversation both bantering and
impatient. You can understand why her friends are so famed, such
ballers, because to be Lawrence's friend, balls are a requirement. "I
can feel people sometimes are intimidated by me, but I try to do the
best I can to offset that," she says. "There is zero reason to be
intimidated by me. At all. But I also understand it."
Lawrence's outspokenness reached a crescendo with her essay for Lena Dunham's Lenny newsletter
last year about equal pay in Hollywood. "I had no idea it was going to
blow up like that," she recalls. "And I obviously only absorbed the
negative. I didn't pay any attention to the positive feedback. My
parents get really upset. They do not like me speaking out about
anything political because it's hard to see your kid take criticism.
But, really, people who criticized it are people who think women should
not be paid the same as men. So I don't really care what those people
think." At the Golden Globes, host Ricky Gervais cracked, "Jennifer
Lawrence … demanded equal pay for women in Hollywood, and she received
overwhelming support from people everywhere. There were marches … with
nurses and factory workers saying, 'How the hell can a 25-year-old live
on 52 million?' " The camera switched to Lawrence laughing
appropriately. "I try not to be too sensitive to the 'poor rich girl'
jokes," she explains. "I was saying my reality is absolutely fabulous,
but it is not the reality of a lot of women in America. That's what I'm
talking about."
"There is zero reason to be intimidated by me. At all. But I also understand it.
Lawrence wrote in Lenny, "I'm
over trying to find the 'adorable' way to state my opinion and still be
likable." That said, she doesn't think being a pleaser equals being
weak. "There's nothing wrong with being a pleaser if you're smart about
it," she says. "As long as you're getting what's fair. You know, I want
my employers to be happy. I want to please anyone I'm working for as
long as they pay me the appropriate amount. I'll make them as happy as
they want."
On
feminism, she argues, "I don't know why that word is so scary to people;
it shouldn't be, because it just means equality. If we are moving
forward in a society, you are feeling stronger as a woman, and you want
to be taken more seriously. You don't have to take away the wonderful
traits that come with being a woman: We are sensitive. We are pleasers.
We're empathetic. All those things that can keep you from asking for
what you want or making mistakes."
Lawrence
will readily admit to making a mistake or two, although her stories
have more of a bawdy, good-time flavor. Everyone, you see, wants to hang
out with J.Law. In what ways, though, is she a social disappointment?
"Ha! That's good." She grins. "I don't really stay out late. I'm kind of
a bummer. I'm a nana. It's hard to get me out, and when I do go out I
don't really stay out late. If I do stay out late and I'm partying hard,
I will throw up. I don't have the tolerance to black out; I just start
puking."
By way of a
witness, she adds, "Ask Emma Stone. It was the night we saw Adele in
L.A. She just started rubbing my back. She was really sweet. I was like,
'Get out of here. It's so gross.' " Add to that party compadre Woody
Harrelson. "Woody cut his foot. He stayed over in one of my guest
bedrooms, but that's where I started puking. I broke a candle because I
can't just puke like a normal person—I flay my arms everywhere. And I
didn't clean it up because I'm an asshole. The next day he cut his foot
open. I was like, 'Fuck, am I going to get sued?' And he's like, 'Are
you going to ask if I'm okay?' " She demurely sips her tea. "That night
got crazy." I suggest that the next time Lawrence embraces the
porcelain, Adele should be in the corner singing as a distraction.
"Yeah!" She laughs. "She would be totally up for it."
Lawrence
has a technical term for such behavior: "Mis-drinking. Mixing 'time
with Woody' [insert wink] with time at the bar." She shakes her head.
"And I'd gone so long without making a mistake."
Even
though she is a huge, megaton celebrity, Lawrence says she makes new
friends easily. "Yeah, I do, which is actually surprising. There were a
few years where I had to get used to everything, but now I am. I don't
have to be wary of people; it's fine."
A
typical day for Lawrence when she's not working entails the following:
"Wake up. I take Pippi on a running hike. I'll probably do Pilates or
something. Then I'll hang out with a friend to count down the hours of
my wasteful life. Then I watch TV, and then I'll go to bed. There's my
day." What makes her laugh? "The Onion headlines. Get me every time. The last one that made me laugh was 'Ugly Girl Killed.' "
"I think we've gotten so used to underweight that when you are a normal weight it's like, 'Oh, my God, she's curvy.'"
Thankfully for her survival on an Onion-ruled
earth, Lawrence has become a real beauty. She has eased into a
streamlined style—trousers and heels for day, and clean, feminine pieces
for the red carpet. "I think I started paying attention to fashion as
soon as paparazzi started happening a few years ago," she recalls. "I
was not ready. I was like, 'What do I wear?' I had to start paying
attention. When I turned 25 it got easier because I know, 'This is you,
this is not you.' " The last thing Lawrence bought for herself was a
"pair of earrings. I don't have a boyfriend, so I have to do that shit
on my own."
A great aid
to her fashion ascension has been Lawrence's relationship with Dior. "I
could not believe it when they signed me [to be in their campaigns],"
she says. "They fly me to Paris and get me hotel rooms, and I'm like,
'Are you kidding me? You don't have to be so nice!' " She adds, as an
aside, "I couldn't renew my contract quickly enough."
On
the red carpet, Lawrence has been a veritable Dior show, her most
successful looks being, like Lawrence herself, bold and no-frills. Like
the red cutout gown she wore to the Golden Globes in January. "That was
my plan-B dress," she says. "Plan A was a dress that I couldn't wear
because awards season is synced with my menstrual cycle, and it has been
for years." The red won because "it was loose at the front. And I
didn't have to worry about sucking anything in. The other dress was
really tight, and I'm not going to suck in my uterus. I don't have to do
that."
Aesthetics are
also an element of the film industry that Lawrence would like to change.
"I would like us to make a new normal-body type," she says. "Everybody
says, 'We love that there is somebody with a normal body!' And I'm like,
'I don't feel like I have a normal body.' I do Pilates every day. I
eat, but I work out a lot more than a normal person. I think we've
gotten so used to underweight that when you are a normal weight it's
like, 'Oh, my God, she's curvy.' Which is crazy. The bare minimum, just
for me, would be to up the ante." That earthy laugh returns. "At least
so I don't feel like the fattest one."
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