Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesIt feels like Jennifer Lawrence is a veteran A-lister at this point, taking on the Hollywood spotlights and the prying media with the utmost confidence and ease…but not all is as it seems.
The 25-year-old actress admits her stardom has definitely taken its toll on her. Even she has become fearful of people's opinion, what she sounds and looks like to the outside world and how Google responds to "Jennifer Lawrence Ugly."
In a recent interview with The New York Times, J.Law puts her humor aside (for the most part) and gets vulnerable with the publication, revealing some emotional facts we've never known about the usually spunky, dirt-off-the-shoulder kind of gal.
Here are the 9 most revealing things we learned:
1. She started her career terrified of Hollywood. "I picture myself drowning. Outwardly, I look like I'm having a blast, and I am, at least on some levels," she explains, remembering herself in 2011 during the first promotional campaign for The Hunger Games. "There I was—burp, burp, burp—just a little gal from Kentucky getting discovered by big ol' Hollywood. But inside I'm terrified. In an instant—boom—everyone's listening, everyone's looking."
2. But she's changed a lot since that time in her life. "I don't feel like I'm being dragged by anything anymore. I feel more in control. I'm calmer. I know that there's no point to feeling anxious all day, so I try not to. "
3. She Googles herself. Though she tries not to get anxious, she does think twice before saying anything. "I can see every negative way that people can take [what I say], and I don't want to sound like I'm complaining," she says. "It probably comes from Googling myself… You try being 22, having a period and staying away from Google. I once Googled ‘Jennifer Lawrence Ugly,'" she laughs. "If it were up to me, I would not talk. I would just act."
4. Though she doesn't act like it, she really does care what people think about her. "I just can't pretend I don't care. I get really insecure about it. The world makes an opinion of you without ever meeting you. That worry should not bother me, but it does. It bothers me," she says before joking, "I'm going to leave here and think, 'Oh God, why couldn't I just have been cool and confident?'"
5. She's never actually revealed her full self to the public. "I find a certain peace by thinking of me in public as sort of an avatar self," the actress explains. "You out there can have the avatar me. I can keep me… So I've got to try to let it go, and try to be myself, and focus on important things, like picking up dog poop" (LOL).
6. Years as an A-list Hollywood actress have helped improve her confidence. "I believe in myself more, and that makes things easier," she admits. "Early on, you wear clothes you don't want to wear or say the sound bite you didn't want to say because you're afraid to speak up or be rude. And then you start to feel like a puppet. Now I just speak up."
7. She's lazy, but it works. "I do things that I respond to, and try not to overthink it," she says, explaining that she doesn't work on her scenes before coming to set. "It's really just pure laziness. I memorize my lines in hair and makeup."
8. She believes that she and Amy Schumer were meant for each other. After reaching out to her over email to gush about Trainwreck and confess that she's in love with her, the two started a relationship and are now working on a movie together. "Amy and I were creatively made for each other," J.Law explains. "We have different flavors. It's been the most fun experience of my life. We start the day off on the phone, laughing. And then we send each other pages. And we crack up."
9. Ending The Hunger Games was very emotional, even for a funnygal like J.Law. "On the last day it was so emotional, and we [she, Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson] kind of couldn't let go of each other. We were kind of freaked out that something was ending. And then, a week later, we were hanging out at Liam's house. We were like, ‘Oh, O.K., so now we can just be friends.'"
For more from Lawrence's emotional interview, check out the full article on The New York Times.