Acting

My Mom and I had a conversation recently about Jennifer Lawrence’s career (The Lawrence Family went to our church growing up and I am friends with her brother, Ben.) Her lovely face is simply everywhere these days so we find ourselves talking about her occasionally. We were bouncing around ideas about what that thing is that makes her stand out over so many other young actresses. She has done drama, action, small film, large film, comedy and scary (I may or may not hide half my face under blankets during the commercial for House at the End of the Street) all in her young career. With an Oscar nomination for Winters Bone and rumors of another for the Silver Linings Playbook (both of these for two different genres,) girl has got it going on.


When I consider some of the roles I have seen her master, scenes I have watched her nail; I remember finding myself thinking “I could never do that!” Last night I realized, that’s IT! That is what makes someone great. While watching TV or a play I often find myself flirting with the idea “I could so do that.” However given deeper thought I always come to the conclusion that I couldn’t even pull off Kristen Stewart levels of acting. I would giggle while she sulks. Acting is quickly struck from my list of “Potential Career Paths and/or Ways to get Rich,” but the thought does cross my mind. It does NOT cross my mind when watching Jennifer.

Cristy and I recently watched Albert Nobbs and you can bet Glenn Close’s Oscars that it didn't occur to me for one second that I could have pulled off that masterpiece of acting genius. She IS Albert Nobbs; she becomes a completely different person in that movie. Based on her track record so far, Jennifer’s IMDB profile could end up looking something like a Glenn Close or a Meryl Streep’s even.

Jennifer seems to have been driven from a young age to do something different, to be something special, and she challenges herself. In an interview where she describes failing at log chopping (for me failing at log chopping would mean lots of dead people and not a single chip in the log) she says she refused to let them bring in a body double as they threatened to do. She chopped up that darned log and some other ones, too. Dang, lady, that is why you are Katniss Freaking Everdeen! You want something and you get it!

My Mom’s favorite story of a young Jennifer is when Jennifer’s Mother, Karen, brought her to meet with Mom so that Mom could try to convince the teenager that she needed to keep attending Youth Group and Choir at our Church on Sunday nights. Jennifer made such a compelling argument to my Mom she was left thinking “well, maybe the child is right!” She knew she didn’t want to do it and she calmly made it clear why. When I wanted or didn’t want to do something at 13 I would yell things about “Not Fair” and “everyone else” and “WHY ME!?”

Comparing Jennifer Lawrence with Kristen Stewart is like comparing Barbara Kingsolver with that horny lady who wrote 50 Shades of Bondage or whatever it is. Does not compute. She is already on a completely different playing field and I am very excited to see where her career goes while she completely becomes these other characters she chooses to portray. I guess even that scary one because I’m sure Cristy will make me watch it.