The Intimate Scene Jennifer Lawrence Felt Guilty About Filming
Jennifer Lawrence has made a name for herself as a grounded, affable actress who seems to tackle every new challenging role with ease. While fans might take it for granted that, as an actress, it's her job to handle each take like a professional, there's no doubt that some scenes are more difficult for Lawrence than others. For instance, there's the intimate scene she felt guilty about filming with her married costar, Chris Pratt.
The pair starred together in the 2016 sci-fi romance "Passengers,"in which Pratt's character is accidentally woken up early from a state of suspended animation while on a 120-year journey to a new planet. Pratt's Jim decides to wake up Lawrence's Aurora, and the two fall in love before having to contend with the ship malfunctioning, threatening the lives of the other still-asleep passengers. However, there's a certain steamy scene that JLaw felt particularly weird about before, during, and after its filming.
Lawrence opened up about the scene during an actress roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter in 2015, talking about what was actually her first "real" love scene. She said she was anxious about kissing a married man — her costar, Chris Pratt, was married to actress Anna Farris at the time: "I had my first real sex scene a couple weeks ago, and it was really bizarre. It was really weird ... And everything was done right; nobody did anything wrong. It's just a bizarre experience." As for how she dealt with her anxiety over the scene? "I got really, really drunk. But then that led to more anxiety when I got home, because I was like, 'What have I done? I don't know,'" Lawrence said.
Jennifer Lawrence felt guilty about filming an intimate scene with a married man
In a separate interview with Seth Meyers, the Oscar-winning actress discussed how she was paranoid about coming across in a negative light. "Because with sex scenes, you don't know what to do, you're like, 'is it enough?' but your worst nightmare is, 'is it too much?'" She continued by pointing out how it felt uncomfortable to discuss the specifics of the scene prior to filming. "You don't talk about it at all, and that makes it so much more uncomfortable..." For Lawrence, the best course of action was to enjoy some wine to help digest the situation.
While speaking at a promotional event, per Vanity Fair, her co-star Chris Pratt mentioned that above all, he wanted to make sure his co-star felt comfortable. "She wanted to have some wine, so we did, and that was nice," Pratt said. However, that didn't keep Lawrence's first intimate scene from being uncomfortable.
Jennifer Lawrence felt so guilty about her romantic scene with Chris Pratt that she called her mom
Even after they were done shooting the scene, Jennifer Lawrence said she was self-conscious about how it went. "Guilt is the worst feeling in your stomach. And I knew it was my job, but I couldn't tell my stomach that," she told The Hollywood Reporter's actress roundtable. Lawrence was so vexed by the situation that she reached out to a family member for comfort and reassurance. "So I called my mom, and I was like, 'Will you just tell me it's OK?' It was just very vulnerable. And you don't know what's too much. You want to do it real, you want everything to be real, but then ... That was the most vulnerable I've ever been," Lawrence said.
It seems her efforts were worth it in the end, as "Passengers" grossed more than $300 million worldwide, making it one of the most profitable original films from 2016. But critics weren't as kind to the film — the sci-fi drama holds a 30% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus being that "'Passengers' proves Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence work well together — and that even their chemistry isn't enough to overcome a fatally flawed story."