by Nadia Cohen
And in an interview for her Miss Dior campaign, Jennifer confessed that all she really wanted was to wear a dress that she could walk in. But that was not to say that she was unhappy in the previous year’s exquisite frothy white gown, which she chose from hundreds of others on offer. ‘I saw a picture of it from the runway and it was just the most beautiful dress I think I had ever seen,’ she gushed.
And true to form, when she returned to present the Best Actor award to Matthew McConaughey for his role in Dallas Buyers Club, the blunders continued, proving that lightning can indeed strike twice.
But at least at the 2014 Oscars Jennifer tripped and fell early, even before the show started – on arrival, as she waved to fans while making her way along the red carpet! She later told ABC News correspondent Lara Spencer that it was not her fault as she had stumbled over an orange traffic cone on her way out of the car, despite having prepared by taking her red strapless gown for a test climb up a flight of stairs to avoid a repeat of the previous year’s disaster. ‘This year I actually did a stair test out on the back staircase and got it a little dusty, but it worked,’ she revealed. ‘But I did trip over a cone, so I guess I’m not safe.’
She added: ‘I’m terrible in heels. I can’t walk, and my feet are uncomfortable.’
In video footage that captured the awkward moment, Jennifer could be seen grabbing a woman standing in front of her as she stumbled to the floor. She then laughed it off as she made her way down the carpet.
And host Ellen DeGeneres brought up the infamous stumble during her opening monologue at the 2014 ceremony: ‘If you win tonight, I think we should bring you the Oscar,’ the comedienne joked.
Jennifer later told The New York Times: ‘That’s how I can go about life free as an idiot: because I have no idea what I’m doing.’
She was again dressed in Dior for the ceremony, after reportedly signing a three-year contract with the luxury fashion house rumoured to be worth between $15 and $20 million. Since 2012 she had been a spokesmodel for the high-end brand and was delighted to be continuing the partnership, which meant she did not have to choose between designers when it came to high-profile events – the deal meant Dior would always dress her, and the gowns would be tailored to fit her curves rather than Jennifer having to cut calories to fit into sample sizes.
She told W magazine: ‘By the time of the actual Oscars, I was so sick of fittings and trains and corsets and people asking, “What are you going to wear?”
‘I had to go on a diet, because at all the parties there’s champagne and hors d’oeuvres. I ate so much! I think I wore two Spanx on the night of the awards.’
And although she lost out at the Oscars for her supporting role as Rosalyn in American Hustle to 12 Years a Slave star Lupita Nyong’o, there was no rivalry and the two actresses went on to become good friends. The pair had come face-to-face for the first time at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Lupita told the Late Show’s David Letterman: ‘I met her at the SAG Awards and I turned around and she saw me at the same time I saw her, and she made this huge ridiculous face of shock. And she beat me to it, because had she not reacted like that, that would have been the look on my face!’
When Letterman called Jennifer ‘kooky’, Lupita defended her new pal, saying: ‘That’s what makes her so good! I just love the faces she makes!’
But it was Jennifer who won at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs that year. It was her second BAFTA nomination, and she did not attend the ceremony at Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House. The first time she had appeared at the star-studded London awards ceremony, however, Jennifer won British hearts by carrying on the tradition established by Brad Pitt in 2012, when she blew a kiss for the television audience after she was asked to do so by host Stephen Fry.
When her BAFTA triumph came, she beat Lupita Nyong’o, who was the hot favourite to win, as well as Julia Roberts, who had been nominated for August: Osage County, Oprah Winfrey for Lee Daniel’s The Butler, and Sally Hawkins for her role in Blue Jasmine.
But since Jennifer was not there to collect the gong from presenter Leonardo DiCaprio, her American Hustle director David O. Russell stepped in to accept the honour. It was the second major awards season event she had to miss as she continued shooting for both X-Men: Days of Future Past and the final Hunger Games films.
But she told Deadline.com that she was completely shocked when she discovered later that she had actually won since by that stage she had forgotten all about her nomination. ‘Oh, it was a big surprise,’ she said. ‘I didn’t remember that the BAFTAs were happening that day. I certainly did not think I was going to win one, so I put it out of my mind. So there I was, in the middle of being painted blue, and someone said, “You just won the BAFTA!” And I said, “Oh, go f**k yourself!” And then it turned out they were serious.’
Luckily she had prepared a few words for her director to read out to the audience gathered in London. Russell had them written down, but had committed her speech to memory, where he thanked her fellow actors, writers and of course himself, on behalf of Jennifer. She had also asked him to convey how much she enjoyed the opportunity to show ‘Heartbreak, romance, rebirth, music and life’.
Having been at the helm of two of Jennifer’s most successful movies – both Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle – David O. Russell offered a unique glimpse into his unconventional approach to movie-making in a subsequent interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.
Revealing that he likes to get up close and personal with his troupe of actors, including of course Jennifer and her frequent co-star Bradley Cooper, the director and screenwriter explained he prefers to accompany his cast on set with a small hand-held camera to capture their emotions, rather than sitting behind the crew watching the action unfold on a monitor, like many modern directors.
He said: ‘I like to be very close to my actors. I don’t like to be sat in what they call video village, which is often 100 yards or more away from the set.
‘I like to be close to them. I like them to feel me and me to feel them. I like to shoot with a small camera so I can be there.’
While most directors rely on the skills of teams of cameramen, Russell prefers to actually hold the camera himself. And a remarkable behind-the-scenes still from the shooting of American Hustle showed the director sprawled out on the back seat of a car as Jennifer Lawrence and Jack Huston sat in the front. As Jennifer, portraying Rosalyn Rosenfeld, glanced casually over her shoulder, Russell could be seen slumped behind her with a tiny camera and various pieces of equipment surrounding him. And the director explained that part of the reason behind their close bond is that Jennifer loved his somewhat unorthodox approach to filmmaking.
Opening up on his relationship with the Oscar-winning actress and her co-stars Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams and Christian Bale, he added: ‘Jennifer got used to it, she liked it a lot.
‘Jack Huston, who’s sitting with her, plays the man who romances her, so that’s the scene they were shooting. It’s great when I have an intuitive connection with the actors and they inspire me to write roles for them. I wrote for Jennifer, I wrote for Bradley, I wrote for Christian and Amy.
‘I talked to them and said, “Let’s create a role that’s worthy of you being involved”. I’m privileged to have their friendship.’
But The Daily Show host Jon Stewart offered a fair amount of ribbing for the somewhat quirky direction method. He joked: ‘You look like you are chaperoning a terrible date. You are the director and you look like they are smuggling you into Tijuana.’
But the crew brushed off any criticism for the way the film was made, and fellow nominee Michael Wilkinson, the Australian costumer designer, was among the many who sang Jennifer’s praises. Wilkinson told how he and his team went with both vintage and newly made clothes for Jennifer’s appearance in Russell’s frantic, freewheeling seventies heist flick.
‘Jennifer and I had fun with the character,’ Wilkinson explained. ‘We really wanted there to be something al
ways not quite right about the way she dressed, and for her often to be overdressed, underdressed, not dressed appropriately for a situation, wearing things that really didn’t work so well for her body.
‘The script is just so wildly vibrant and complex and interesting, and I really wanted to make sure that my costume choices were up to standard,’ Wilkinson added at an Oscar nominees’ luncheon in Beverly Hills.
‘And David really encouraged me to go very deep with my design work and kind of outside of my usual scope and thinking outside the box.’
Perhaps the most memorable outfit Jennifer wore was the very tight white gown in the big casino scene, which exposed more of her body than she usually likes to show. ‘The cleavage is extremely plunging,’ Wilkinson continued. ‘We kind of liked the idea that you know: “Is she going to stay inside the dress? Is she going to, you know?” They had this amazing sense of electricity and danger.’
Thinking outside the box came rather naturally when dressing the unpredictable, off-kilter Rosalyn. Although Jennifer was at least a decade too young for the role of crazy-volatile housewife, as the part had been written, age had never been a problem before and once again she overcame that particular obstacle through the sheer force of her unstoppable talent.
It was lauded as her most unplugged performance, and wild fun to behold, even though some critics felt that the director who would clearly watch her do anything was hugely indulging her. Her wig-out to the Wings’ song, ‘Live and Let Die’, bafflement over a microwave, and the bathroom bitch-off with Amy Adams have already proved to be greatest-hits moments, in a film which so very nearly won Jennifer a second Oscar for her mantelpiece.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE GOING GETS TOUGH
Jennifer found herself forced to miss out on many of the celebrations enjoyed by the rest of the American Hustle cast due to her relentless back-to-back schedule of filming commitments, and David O. Russell has often leapt to her defence when she has been absent. During the filming of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, when she was stuck on location in Atlanta after the production endured setbacks because of icy storms, the director revealed how exhausted she was, adding that he was concerned about the intense demands on her time.
Russell commented that the Hunger Games bosses were working Jennifer like a slave. He told Confidenti@l at the Australian Academy’s AACTA Awards: ‘I’ll tell you what it is about that girl – talk about twelve years of slavery, that’s what the franchise is.’
However, he later apologised for his comments since there had been a backlash against him making a joke about slavery, which had been considered poor taste. He told MailOnline: ‘Clearly, I used a stupid analogy in a poor attempt at humour. I realised it the minute I said it and I am truly sorry.’
But explaining what he had meant by the remark, Russell went on: ‘I personally think they should give her a bit of breathing room over there because they’re printing money. But she’s a very alive person.’
And after her two Oscar nominations, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who funded Silver Linings Playbook, agreed that Jennifer needed a break after a very hectic few years of back-to-back filming: ‘She’s going to have a long break for a year where she won’t do anything,’ he told The Sun newspaper. ‘It’s been non-stop for her and she deserves a rest.
‘She signed on to do Hunger Games when she was young and wouldn’t have realised how much it would dominate her life. But she’s a professional and always will be. It’s been non-stop for her and she deserves a rest’.
But of course there was little chance of a break in Jennifer’s hectic diary, since she was more in demand than ever following her awards. She flew straight back to Atlanta to continue shooting the latest Hunger Games instalment, but production was halted in the wake of the sudden death in February 2014 of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played Plutarch Heavensbee in the dystopian fantasy series.
Just forty-six years of age, he had been due to join the cast on set, but was found on the bathroom floor of his $10,000-a-month New York apartment by his personal assistant and friend, the playwright David Bar Katz, after he did not show up to pick up his children. Hoffman had recently separated from his long-term partner of fourteen years, the costume designer Mimi O’Donnell, and it quickly emerged that he had died from a drug overdose, leaving behind the couple’s children, Cooper, Tallulah and Willa, and an estimated fortune of $35 million.
The extent of his addiction to class-A drugs had not been fully known to his friends, who thought he had beaten his demons. At the age of twenty-two, the star had checked into rehab, battling addictions to alcohol and narcotics, but as far as Jennifer and the rest of the Hunger Games cast were aware he had replaced this addiction with an obsessive love of acting. The troubled father of three, who won an Oscar for Best Actor in Capote (2005), a film about the author Truman Capote, was known for throwing himself into his work to the point of physical and mental exhaustion. After filming wrapped on Capote he promised his partner that he would never become obsessed with another role in quite the same way.
But as a string of successful film offers came along, the party lifestyle took hold once more and he started to take drugs again: ‘It was anything I could get my hands on,’ he once said. ‘I liked it all.’
In the run-up to his untimely death, Seymour Hoffman had succumbed once more and in May 2013 it emerged that he had checked himself in for a detox programme after snorting heroin. Friends thought the ten-day treatment had been successful and he returned to work. But less than a year later he went on a desperate hunt for drugs on the streets around his New York apartment and died of an overdose of a deadly cocktail that included heroin, cocaine, benzodiazepines and amphetamine. It was reported that he had a syringe in his arm and was surrounded by seventy bags of what was believed to be heroin, and twenty used syringes.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the whole cast were on set when news of the tragedy broke, and filming was immediately drawn to a halt as they dealt with their grief.
Seymour Hoffman had been making both of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay movies back-to-back in the months leading up to his death, and spent the majority of his time on and off set with the stars and crew of the franchise.
His death came as a devastating blow to them all, and Jennifer was left emotionally distraught. Along with the rest of the cast, she issued a heartfelt statement in tribute. ‘Words cannot convey the devastating loss we are all feeling right now,’ she said. ‘Philip was a wonderful person and an exceptional talent, and our hearts are breaking. Our deepest condolences go out to his family.’
It was understood that Seymour Hoffman had completed almost all of his work on the series’ final installment, and had just seven days of filming left. The moviemakers were forced to use CGI technology to finish the last remaining scenes, which the actor had not been able to film.
As he had already finished shooting the first Mockingjay film, producers confirmed that they would not be recasting the role, and that the release of the films would not be delayed.
‘Philip Seymour Hoffman was a singular talent and one of the most gifted actors of our generation,’ production company Lionsgate said in a statement.
‘We’re very fortunate that he graced our Hunger Games family.
‘Losing him in his prime is a tragedy, and we send our deepest condolences to Philip’s family.’
As a mark of respect, production on the movie was briefly halted while the cast and crew mourned. Mockingjay director Francis Lawrence was careful to ease his leading lady back into filming without her co-star. He explained how they began to slowly move forward with the movie, with Jennifer and Liam Hemsworth being the first stars to return to the set in Atlanta, Georgia, within a few days of hearing the sad news.
‘We started very small, just one scene with Katniss and Gale [Liam Hemsworth] so there weren’t any extras around. It was just the two of them and not long days. We kind of eased everybody back into work. It’s a big cast too, so every time someb
ody who hadn’t been around for a while would come back it would bring it all up again.’
Seymour Hoffman played the leader of an underground military facility and former Gamesmaker, who recruited Katniss to help incite the citizens of Panem to take up arms against the autocratic Capitol and end the tyrannical reign of the cruel President Snow (Donald Sutherland).
Francis Lawrence compared the experience of working with his co-stars, saying: ‘It’s interesting when you work with somebody like Jen, she doesn’t talk about what she does. She just does it. It’s all instinctual and I think she even has a hard time talking about it; Phil is a completely different guy.
‘He likes to talk about things and he likes to keep talking about it and unlike a lot of other actors who like to talk about it and then nothing changes, he can actually change his performance. The way he would dig at a scene. There’s a scene with Phil and Julianne [Moore] and Jeffrey [Wright] sitting at a table [early in the film]. It was fascinating for him to just keep digging and digging, and to see the layers of nuance and subtext that were getting added. You can watch it in a way that’s different from a lot of actors because he’s talking about it as he does it.
‘Between takes, he’s asking questions out loud and talking to me or talking to Julianne and you can see it evolve and change. It’s amazing to watch.’
Some commentators felt Jennifer had been pushed back to work too soon following the tragedy, and in an interview with Empire magazine, she admitted that she was ready for a break: ‘It’s OK. It’s my fault,’ she said. ‘I get little breaks here and there. But on the last day of Hunger Games I’m going to turn my phone off for a year!’
