Jennifer Lawrence waded back into a topic that caused her some backlash last month, after comments she made about working with David O. Russell came under intense scrutiny.
To recap, Lawrence's initial, controversial comments about her experiences working with the notoriously intense and demanding director came during her appearance on The New York Times podcast, The Interview, where she seemed to downplay Russell's reputation for not always creating a great work environment on set.
Many saw Lawrence's comments as being dismissive of the experiences other actors have shared about working with Russell, including Amy Adams, who starred in Russell's 2013 film American Hustle alongside Lawrence and spoke out about how difficult the experience was for her in a 2016 interview with GQ.
“He was hard on me, that’s for sure," Adams said in the interview, in which she also admitted the director made her cry "most" days on set. "It was a lot. I was really just devastated on set.”
In her appearance on The Interview podcast, Lawrence, who won her first Oscar for her role in Silver Lining's Playbook, which Russell also helmed, defended his directing style and his demeanor with her on set.
David O. Russell and Jennifer Lawrence posing together at the 2016 Vanity Fair Oscars Party in Beverly Hills.
“I really felt like with David that was his way of communicating in a non-bullshit way," the Die My Love actress told the New York Times. "I never felt like he was degrading or yelling at me. If he didn’t like something, he was just like: ‘That was terrible! Looked like shit! Do it better.’ And that was a very helpful conversation.”
Then, when Lawrence added seemingly-pointedly, “I’m not sensitive. I don’t know how you can be in this industry," the interviewer purposefully turned the conversation to Adams' very different descriptions of her experiences with Russell, including her statement about crying frequently on the American Hustle set.
“Maybe he was harder on her than he was on me. I don’t know. I mean, yes, of course I’m sensitive. I’m really sensitive. I don’t know," Lawrence replied before adding that she meant she was “not sensitive about acting" specifically.
The comments proved controversial enough that Leonardo DiCaprio brought the topic back up more than a month later during his conversation with Lawrence for Variety's Actors On Actors series.
“I wanted to ask about David O. Russell,” DiCaprio said when broaching the subject with Lawrence, whose three collaborations with Russell have resulted in some of her most acclaimed work—2012's Silver Lining's Playbook, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar, and 2013's American Hustle and 2015's Joy, both of which earned her additional Oscar nominations.
“What do you feel like he brought in you in a lot of these roles?" DiCaprio added. "I think you’ve talked about it, this sort of push and pull with him and how it helped you as an actor in a lot of ways.”
Although Lawrence appeared a bit apprehensive when the topic came up, she didn't shy away from answering, instead using the conversation to attempt to clarify her widely-criticized comments from November.
“He taught me how to act, really," she said. "I want to be sensitive to the other actors who’ve worked with him, because I know he’s tough. He can be really, really hard on people.”
Lawrence went on to compare Russell's directing style to a coach working with athletes—and explained that it's a style that happens to work for her.
“For me, I don’t know if it was because I grew up doing sports, and so I just felt like he was just a stern coach,” she added. “It’s like: ‘Do it louder, do it more quiet, that was bullshit, do it again, that was bad, do it better!’ It was just very straightforward to me.”
Robert De Niro and Jennifer Lawrence joined David O. Russell on stage at the Tribeca Talks - Director Series discussion dedicated to him at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
Upon reflection, Lawrence also acknowledge that her age and inexperience—she was just 21 when she first worked with Russell—could have impacted her reaction to his directing style.
“And I think I was young enough that I didn’t have anything to [compare it to], it was normal to me,” she explained. “I was 21 when I did Silver Linings Playbook, it just felt really alive. I never felt like he was yelling at me.”
Lawrence said Russell's style of calling out directions worked for her as a performer and asked if DiCaprio felt the same way. The actor said that he agreed that approach could sometimes be helpful, but admitted that usually, in his experience, directors come up to actors to have intimate conversations about any notes or feedback they have to offer.
“Yeah, and I don’t like being tiptoed around like I’m an emotional landmine,” Lawrence replied, as if emphasizing why Russell's approach, while uncommon, seems to work so well for her. “I hate that."