From The Hunger Games to Die My Love, Hollywood icon Jennifer Lawrence has wowed audiences on screen for the best part of 20 years.
Yet while the actor has been no stranger to award-winning films dominating the box office, she hasn’t always felt her reputation in her younger years truly reflected the consummate professional she wanted to be.
Reflecting on her reputation during the early years of her career, Lawrence, 35, even dubbed herself 'embarrassing' while chatting to The New Yorker.
In a profile piece published on Monday (October 27), the star explained how she had appeared 'so hyper' in many of her interviews, something that left her cringing in hindsight and left some fans wondering if she was, in fact, faking her persona.
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"Well, it is, or it was, my genuine personality, but it was also a defense mechanism," she told the outlet.
With many people failing to recognize that her 'cool girl' persona was in fact her authentic self, Lawrence found herself constantly having to defend her behavior, adding: "It was a defense mechanism, to just be, like, ‘I’m not like that! I poop my pants every day!’"
Although Lawrence's career first kicked off in 2006, it wasn’t until the early 2010s that she found herself propelled into the limelight with films such as Winter's Bone and Silver Linings Playbook, with the latter even scooping her an Oscar by the time she was a mere 22 years old.
As her stardom skyrocketed, however, so too did the price of her success, with the actor recalling that at the height of her fame, the paparazzi used to follow her as she drove through Los Angeles - something which meant she was constantly featured in the press and left fearful that people would become sick of her repeated presence.
As a result, Lawrence believes she got 'rejected' simply because she was on show so much.
"I look at those interviews, and that person is annoying," she admitted. "I get why seeing that person everywhere would be annoying. Ariana Grande’s impression of me on SNL was spot-on."
Lawrence added: “I felt - I didn’t feel, I was, I think - rejected not for my movies, not for my politics, but for me, for my personality."
While Ariana Grande herself is no stranger to the spotlight, the singer and Wicked star did once portray Lawrence on an episode of Saturday Night Live back in 2016.
During the show, Grande portrayed a spoof of JLaw in a Celebrity Family Feud sketch and referred to herself as 'a regular person' throughout.
After seeing it for herself, Lawrence told Vogue in 2017 that the entire bit was 'spot-f***ing on'.
These days, Lawrence likes to think of herself as a little more refined, but despite reflecting on her formative years and her past goofy self, the actor had to confess that on her way to speak with The New Yorker, she had actually got her mouth guard stuck in her mouth.
"Can you imagine? After ten years of being, like, ‘I used to be folksy, but everyone thought everything was a shtick,’ then I show up for my first day of this," she said, while theatrically imitating a clumsy person wearing a mouth guard. "I was, like, I will do anything to prevent this from happening. It would be like if I tripped and fell on my way into the room."
Thankfully, Jen did manage to avoid having a repeat of her 2013 Oscar accident, which saw the star famously trip over her Dior gown while collecting her award for Best Actress.
Die My Love, which Lawrence co-stars alongside Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte, hits cinemas on November 7.
Topics: Celebrity, Jennifer Lawrence, Hollywood
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