After going viral for what she readily admits was a “blunder,” Jennifer Lawrence is setting the record straight that she knows women starred in action films before her turn as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. While taking part in Variety‘s Actors on Actors interview series with Viola Davis, Lawrence said the following about being cast in the young adult franchise.
“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,” Lawrence said. “Girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead.”
Obviously, that’s not true, and Lawrence was dragged on social media as people rattled off a list of popular female-led action movies like Aliens, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider. After catching wind of the brouhaha, Lawrence clarified her remarks in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter:
“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. But it was my blunder and it came out wrong. I had nerves talking to a living legend.”
Lawrence also noted she doesn’t make it a point to clarify every time she’s misconstrued, like when an outlet misquoted her as saying “Donald Trump causes hurricanes.”
“I felt that one was ridiculous, that it was so stupid I didn’t need to comment,” Lawrence told THR. “But this one, I was like, ‘I think I want to clarify.’”
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)