The rise of Jennifer Lawrence has been really huge, really fast. The girl came out with an Oscar nomination at 20 for the little seen (but really good) WInter's Bone and then used that as a boost to jump into franchise movies in a hurry with The Hunger Games and X-Men: First Class. Silver Linings Playbook came out in the same year as Hunger Games and bam, she's got her first Best Actress Oscar at 22 years old. It's been a pretty dramatic rise for her, and I think she's going to be around for a long time because she's a good screen presence (unlike say, Kristen Stewart), and there's 3 more Hunger Games movies coming out in the next few years alone. So I like her a lot and she gets a great photo spread in Vogue, but already she's committing my biggest pet peeve about famous people- and that's complaining about being famous. Come on, are you kidding? Already?
"All of a sudden the entire world feels entitled to know everything about me, including what I'm doing on my weekends when I'm spending time with my nephew.'"
Then there's this:
"What really gets to her is when people say, 'You have to make peace with it.' 'I am just not OK with it,' she says. 'It's as simple as that. I am just a normal girl and a human being, and I haven't been in this long enough to feel like this is my new normal. I'm not going to find peace with it.'"
The only thing that bugs me about that is how much I don't buy it. It was incredibly obvious that this girl wanted to be famous. You don't go aggressively chasing after franchise movies after making a well-reviewed indie film if that's not what you want (especially The Hunger Games, which everyone knew was going to be huge no matter who was cast in that role). You don't make sure you're the first person on the red carpet at the Oscars for Winter's Bone in a dress that guarantees you're unrecognizable from that film if you're not trying to get attention (see below). And you don't, in the very same interview where you moan about the plight of being famous, also say this:
"'But I always knew,'- here she lowers her voice- 'that I was going to be famous. I honest to God don't know how else to describe it. I used to lie in bed and wonder, Am I going to be a local TV person? Am I going to be a motivational speaker? It wasn't a vision. But as it's kind of happening, you have this buried understanding: Of course.'"
Right. So, given that she's 23, this longing to be famous took place in the last decade, where not a single person in their twenties grew up not knowing what it is to be famous, in this era of reality TV and TMZ and the internet and all the rest of it. She knew. And now she's one of the youngest Oscar winners ever and has probably got herself and her entire family set for the the rest of their lives, so take it easy on the whining, ok Jennifer? You're a good actress who got famous from movies, as opposed to scandals and reality TV, with a long career ahead of you- I'd say you've pretty much got it made.
