Jennifer Lawrence: “A good actor is one who is not afraid to laugh at himself”

Jennifer Lawrence (Indian Hills, Kentucky, 1990) says she didn’t intend to return to acting for at least “another year.” the main character Hunger Games She was the mother of her first baby in 2022, and her intention was to “last another year” in order to devote herself to the little one. Script by his friend Gene Stupnitski, the director bad guys and screenwriter of OfficeThis made him change his mind. “It’s that I’ve wanted to do comedy for a long time and this is the funniest script I’ve read in my life,” says Lawrence in Madrid, engrossed in promotion. No bad rollswhich arrived on the poster this Friday, June 23.

On tape, a kind of update of thug college comedies American Pie, with the same eschatology but with a little less punch, gives life to Maddie, a thirty-year-old who is not having the best of times. A waitress at a restaurant on the beach, she inherited her mother’s house, but due to her modest income, she can’t pay taxes, and the car she used to earn a bonus as an Uber driver has been confiscated. If your situation doesn’t improve, the house could be next.

Aware of this, he is looking for a used vehicle to recover this source of income, and then he comes across an interesting ad. Parents promise to give a car to a young woman who seduces their shy and inexperienced 19-year-old son before he leaves for college, not only to give him his first intimate experience, but also with the idea of ​​turning him into a confident guy. The funny thing is that the ad was inspired by a real ad that appeared in the Craigslist, an American classifieds website of all kinds. When Stupnitsky told him he was developing a story around that idea, Lawrence laughed his head off. “I just thought it was ridiculous to imagine a person who would write an ad like that and a person who would respond.”

The introverted kid Maddie has to help come out of his shell is Percy. He is played by Andrew B. Feldman (Manhasset, New York, 2002), an actor and singer experienced in musical theater who stars in his first film and is enthusiastic. With this insecurity and lack of opportunity as a backdrop for comedy, it’s worth asking him if he thinks young people are in a worse situation today than they were a few decades ago. “Everything is, of course, more expensive,” he answers. In his opinion, they have more options on some issues, “like when we talk about fame that has become democratized with social networks,” he says. “But now it’s harder to go to college because it’s a lot more expensive and it’s reserved for people like Percy, who was born into a rich family. So yes, there are fewer opportunities for young people and that’s a bit scary.”

With comedy as lubricant, No bad rolls deals with topics such as unequal relationships, development into adulthood, the first time that seems to haunt Americans so much, and even prostitution. Do we all have a price? “I support sex workers,” says Lawrence, also a fiction producer, “but Maddie is not a prostitute. There is a lot of darkness in this film and we made it lighter. It’s a black comedy, not very appropriate, and the characters are there to mock and laugh at everyone, including themselves.” In this sense, an important part of the film bases its humor on the most physical comedy: punches, unexpected vomiting or more or less involuntary abuses . Lawrence is convinced that a good actor is one “who is not afraid to laugh at himself”. For his part, Feldman confirms this: “Of course. I think what we’re doing is very stupid. And there will necessarily be people who disagree with me in our industry, who take it very seriously. And I understand that we get great performances from them, but every day we pretend, we dress up,” he says.

Much of the blame for continuing to slip into the shoes of new characters lies with the writers. The strike that began in early May in Hollywood paralyzed the industry. “We fully support them,” says Lawrence. “It is a key and essential blow. It was about time,” says Feldman energetically. Distribution, television and cinematography have changed, and this should benefit not only those who made the change, but also screenwriters, they point out.