Jennifer Lawrence Says She Had a "People-Pleasing" Problem Before Leaving the Spotlight

Jennifer Lawrence hasn't been around much lately—she took a break from acting starting in 2018, and has been working on a few projects since 2020.

Now, as Lawrence prepares for the release of Don't Look Up, a Netflix movie directed by Adam McKay and co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio, she is returning to the spotlight via a Vanity Fair cover story—all while expecting her first child.

Speaking to the magazine, Lawrence explains how unfulfilling her work had become before she decided to take a step back. "I was not pumping out the quality that I should have," she said. "I just think everybody had gotten sick of me. I’d gotten sick of me.

"It had just gotten to a point where I couldn’t do anything right. If I walked a red carpet, it was, 'Why didn’t she run?'… I think that I was people-pleasing for the majority of my life. Working made me feel like nobody could be mad at me: 'Okay, I said yes, we’re doing it. Nobody’s mad.' And then I felt like I reached a point where people were not pleased just by my existence. So that kind of shook me out of thinking that work or your career can bring any kind of peace to your soul."

The actress has seen all the heartbreaking drawbacks of living life as a famous person. For example, she had to give her dog Pippi up to her parents to avoid paparazzi following her around on her walks with the animal. So, understandably, she's adamant about protecting her child—and pregnancy—from the craziness at all costs. "If I was at a dinner party, and somebody was like, 'Oh, my God, you’re expecting a baby,' I wouldn’t be like, 'God, I can’t talk about that. Get away from me, you psycho!' But every instinct in my body wants to protect their privacy [presumably her husband's and baby's] for the rest of their lives, as much as I can. I don’t want anyone to feel welcome into their existence. And I feel like that just starts with not including them in this part of my work." Seems fair enough.