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Jennifer Lawrence He wanted to do big comedy for years. She has always been funny and energetic in her television appearances. And though she brought humor and physical comedy to many of her roles for David O. Russell and others, she also didn’t get the big, wide Dumb and Dumber or Anchorman experience, to cite some of her favorites (or at least the ones she saved).
That changed on Friday with No Hard Feelings, a classic R-rated smutty comedy made for the Oscar winner.
“I’ve always wanted to do a comedy. And I read a lot of it,” Lawrence told The Associated Press during an interview about the hotly anticipated summer movie season. “I just haven’t read anything funny enough.”
The idea for No Hard Feelings was inspired by an actual Craigslist ad posted by parents who were looking for a woman to “date” their son to bring him out of his shell the summer before he went to college. There are debates about how realistic a “real ad” is, but the thought of a woman who might answer such an ad was a funny enough premise to catch the attention of several producer-director Gene Staubnitsky.
Stupnitsky, the Emmy-nominated graduate of The Office who also directed and co-wrote the 2019 hit Good Boys, knew who to take it to. He told Lawrence about the idea one night at dinner with friends, where he estimated they had about “eight or nine martinis between us”.
The two met over a decade ago, through a mutual friend, in the Middle Ages of all places. He remembers Lawrence dressed as a full wizard. And soon they became true friends. He even introduced Lawrence to her husband.
“I owe him one,” Lawrence said. “That’s why I made this movie.”
“Maybe there’s some truth to that,” added Stubnitzky, sitting next to Lawrence.
With Jennifer Lawrence attached to star and produce, the movie has become a hot commodity, with streaming services and studios vying for the rights to make it. In the end, they went with Sony and a traditional theatrical release.
“The reason I wrote this movie for her is because I knew how funny she was and I wanted everyone to know her. I mean, people knew she was funny but they wanted her in a comedy. I thought, yeah I know how to do this. I know how to write her voice,” said Stupnitsky. I remember telling her, “I really want you to feel like sitting in a theater with hundreds of people laughing.” She’s had many experiences on film, but she’s never quite had that experience.
In No Hard Feelings, Lawrence’s character Maddie faces a tough money stretch. As an Uber driver without a car, she’s in a stressful bind. So when she finds this ad with the promise of a Buick Regal as payment, she takes the bait. In a clip that Sony premiered for theater owners at last week’s CinemaCon convention, Maddie meets 19-year-old Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) for the first time wearing a skinny hot pink mini dress and heels and acting overtly buxom and available. .
“She dresses up like what she thinks is a 19-year-old sexual fantasy. He’s like the only child she can’t seduce,” said Stupnitsky.
The situation escalates from there as she tries to get him home. He thinks he’s being kidnapped and, as anyone who’s seen the Red Squad trailer knows, ends up pepper spraying them. But there’s a sweet core to the movie, too.
“He craves connection, which she also needs but doesn’t know yet,” said Stupnitsky. “She wants to get the car and move on with her life. But he forces her to kind of slow things down and get to know him and be intimate, in a way, with him in a platonic way.”
Lawrence said the experience was a blast, helped by her connection to her younger co-star.
“We laughed all day,” she said. “Sometimes I’d just fall into bed after work, and have a good laugh before bed, and just think about the day. I was also sad because I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m just never going to have one of those again. This is very unique. “
As the film’s producer, Lawrence really gets to watch it with the audience and experience the great collective laughter that Stubnitzky promised.
“I went to check my test and sat in the back,” she said. “It was so cool.”
She knows every movie gamble but she’s pretty sure there are no hard feelings involved.
“You really never know. You might think the fans want it and they don’t. I definitely had my experience with that,” she said. “It’s a combination of instinct and looking at the information you have. I knew what we got was the funniest movie anyone could ever see – I have no doubt about that – and I knew it was Gene who could do it.”
It’s also Lawrence’s first major theatrical release in a few years, since 2019’s X-Men movie Dark Phoenix. Her recent films have mainly been streaming releases with Netflix’s Don’t Look Up and Apple’s Causeway, which she also produced.
“I think the audience will really remember why they loved her,” said Stupnitsky.
“I look much better at 12 feet,” laughed Lawrence.
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