Jennifer Lawrence ‘Was at Peace’ With Not Returning to Hollywood During Two-Year Acting Break: ‘But I Also Would’ve Been Really Upset

According To The variety Jennifer Lawrence recently said on “The Graham Norton Show” that she “was at peace” with not returning to Hollywood during her two-year acting break a few years ago. After scoring her fourth Oscar nomination with 2015’s “Joy,” Lawrence went on to star in a string of consecutive box office failures like “Passengers” (2016), “Mother!” (2017), “Red Sparrow” (2018) and the “X-Men” spinoff “Dark Phoenix” (2019). She then stopped acting for two years, only returning in late 2021 with Adam McKay’s ensemble comedy “Don’t Look Up.” “I took a little time,” Lawrence told Norton. “I was working all of my twenties, and then I was like… what’s out here? What’s going on?” When asked if she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to get back into Hollywood, the Oscar winner responded: “I was at peace with that possibility of that happening. [Hollywood] is a lot… I think I would have been [okay], but also I would’ve been really upset. I don’t know.” Speaking to Vanity Fair in 2021 ahead of the release of “Don’t Look Up,” Lawrence said that her two-year Hollywood break was needed as she “was not pumping out the quality that I should have.” She added at the time: “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?’” Lawrence continued, “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 actor’s longtime best friend and producing partner, Justine Polsky, summarized Lawrence’s need for an acting break by telling Vanity Fair at the time: “The protocol of stardom began to kill her creative spirit, to fuck with her compass. So, she vanished, which was probably the most responsible way to protect her gifts. And sanity.” Lawrence is now back in the spotlight as she promotes “Die My Love,” her upcoming psychodrama with co-star Robert Pattinson and director Lynne Ramsay. The film, which stars Lawrence as a woman whose life spirals as she balances marriage and motherhood, had its world premiere at Cannes earlier this year. Mubi is releasing “Die My Love” in theaters Nov. 7.