Jennifer Lawrence is setting the record straight.
The actress spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about her comments during her recent Actors on Actors interview with Variety.
While discussing the topic of female-led action movies such as “The Hunger Games” and “The Woman King”, Lawrence claimed no one had put females in the lead of an action movie before.
“I remember when I was doing Hunger Games, nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie, because it wouldn’t work, we were told. Girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead,” she said.
Lawrence clarified she hadn’t meant to imply she was the first female action lead and meant to talk about how empowering a female lead can be.
“That’s certainly not what I meant to say at all. I know that I am not the only woman who has ever led an action film. What I meant to emphasize was how good it feels. And I meant that with Viola — to blow past these old myths that you hear about … about the chatter that you would hear around that kind of thing,” she told the outlet. “But it was my blunder and it came out wrong. I had nerves talking to a living legend.”
The topic arose when Viola Davis brought up her disbelief that a movie like “The Woman King” could be made.
“When have I ever seen anything like The Woman King?” Davis recalled during the interview. “Not just with me in it, but with anyone who looks like me in it? What studio is going to put money behind it? How are they going to be convinced that Black women can lead a global box office?”
Hoping to dispel that belief, Lawrence had pointed out the film’s positive reception.
READ MORE: ‘The Woman King’: Lashana Lynch Praises ‘Queen’ Viola Davis In Exclusive Behind-The-Scenes Clip
“I wanna circle back to you being the lead of ‘The Woman King’. And we’re at, I think it’s 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes? Sixty-six million domestic. I mean, it is just … It couldn’t have been more wrong,” said the actress. “It just makes me so happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every single one of those beliefs and proves that it is just a lie to keep certain people out of the movies, to keep certain people in the same positions that they’ve always been in. It’s just amazing to watch it happen and watch you at the helm.”
This isn’t the first time the Oscar winner felt she had been misquoted in the press.
“One time I was quoted saying that Donald Trump was responsible for hurricanes. I felt that one was ridiculous, that it was so stupid I didn’t need to comment. But this one, I was like, ‘I think I want to clarify,” she added.
