Probably the most controversial and divisive movie of Jennifer Lawrence’s career is Darren Aronfosky’s Mother! This is hardly surprising, coming from the director of The Whale, Black Swan, The Fountain, and Requiem for a Dream.
Lawrence, who is best-known for The Hunger Games movies, in which she played an action hero and did many stunts, described that she injured herself on the set of the horror movie simply due to its intensity. Speaking to Variety when Mother! was coming out, Lawrence says; “I had trouble calming down and coming back after he called cut. Sometimes it’s hard, when you summon all of these feelings, to just kind of snap out of it. I’ve always been fine snapping out of it, but I’ve never had to go this dark before.”
“So, I just kind of lost control of myself, and I tore my diaphragm and popped my chest rib out. So, I don’t know if I’d ever work with Darren again [laughs].” Aronofsky says; “I think we definitely went really, really intense..” and Lawrence interjects “…too far, too far…” and Aronofsky responds; “well, we always go a little too far sometimes.”
Between 2011-2016, Lawrence was a prolific actress – starring in the X-Men movies and Hunger Games franchise, as well as being nominated for four Oscars, winning one. She then began to slow down and has only appeared in five movies since 2016 – Mother! (2017), Red Sparrow (2018), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Don’t Look Up (2021) and Causeway (2022).
Darren Aronfsky’s The Whale was nominated for three Oscars, winning two, including Best Actor for Brendan Fraser.