Jennifer Lawrence feels ‘like a blister’ now she’s an actress and mother
The star was discussing her role in new film Die, My Love.
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson got candid about how parenthood has changed them at the Cannes press conference for their raw upcoming film, Die, My Love.
The pair play new parents, Grace and Jackson, whose relationship cracks under the pressure of navigating the change in their lives, while Grace suffers from an identity crisis that soon develops into postpartum depression.
Oscar-winner Lawrence – who may have to clear some more space on her awards shelf after this powerfully vulnerable performance – said on Sunday morning that having children had ‘changed everything’ for her personally, as well as in her work as an actress.
‘It’s brutal and incredible,’ she told press, including Metro. ‘Not only do they go into every decision of if I’m working, where I’m working, when I’m working [but] they’ve taught me – I didn’t know that I could feel so much, and my job has a lot to do with emotion, and they’ve opened up the world to me.’
Giving a visceral comparison, she added: ‘It’s almost feeling like a blister or something, like so sensitive. So they’ve changed my life, obviously for the best, and they’ve changed me creatively.’
‘I highly recommend having kids if you want to be an actor,’ she suggested, to laughs among the audience.
Lawrence and her Die, My Love co-star Robert Pattinson are both parents to young kids (Picture: Marc Piasecki/FilmMagic)Hunger Games star Lawrence, 34, shares two children with her art gallery director husband Cooke Maroney: son Cy, three, and her newborn, who arrived in March. Their gender and name has not been publicly disclosed.
Her co-star Pattinson also chimed in with his own experiences of fatherhood – after welcoming his daughter with fiancée Suki Waterhouse in March 2024 – saying that ‘in the most unexpected ways, having a baby gives you the biggest trove of energy and inspiration afterwards’.
This made for a hilarious exchange between him and Lawrence when she questioned how the Mickey 17 star, 39, ‘got energy’ from being a father to a young child.
Pattinson kept the laughs in the room going when he admitted: ‘This question is impossible for a guy to answer correctly!’
With her husband Cooke Maroney after Saturday night’s premiere (Picture: Getty) Pattinson with fiancee Suki Waterhouse, pictured in 2023 (Picture: Getty) He laughed that he was ‘just here to support Jennifer’ after surprising press by saying he was ‘energised’ after becoming a new father (Picture: AFP via Getty)‘What Jennifer said, I’m here just to support,’ he quipped before continuing: ‘Ever since she was born, it’s reinvigorated the way I approach work – and you’re a completely different person.’
It was Lawrence who brought Die, My Love to director Lynne Ramsay, known for We Need to Talk About Kevin, after reading the novel by Ariana Harwicz shortly after giving birth to Cy.
She revealed it was ‘really hard to kind of separate what I would do as opposed to what she would do [as a mother]’, calling the book ‘devastating’.
The film, which also counts Carrie icon Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte and Lakeith Stanfield among its cast, shot in the latter half of last year, when Lawrence was five months’ pregnant.
Die, My Love director Lynne Ramsay (C), flanked by (from L) Lakeith Stanfield, Lawrence, Pattinson and Sissy Spacek (Picture: Marc Piasecki/FilmMagic) The two actors play struggling new parents Grace and Jackson, who have a hard time navigating her postpartum crisis (Picture: Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock)‘There’s not really anything like postpartum. It’s extremely isolating,’ she added, commenting on Ramsay’s choice to move Grace and Jackson away from their New York home to Montana in the film.
‘[Grace] doesn’t have a community, she doesn’t have her people, but the truth is, extreme anxiety and extreme depression it is isolating. No matter where you are, you feel like an alien, and so it deeply moved me.’
Pattinson also added that taking his role was an unusual move for him because ‘normally I’m quite attracted to characters who are incredibly abrasive and quite obscure’.
‘I think Jackson was way more a normal guy than I’ve ever played. There’s something quite universal and interesting for me anyway, because when you’re dealing with a partner that’s going through postpartum or any kind of mental illness or difficulties, trying to deal with her isolation, and trying to figure out where your part and what your role in the relationship is afterwards, it’s incredibly difficult, especially if you don’t have the vernacular.’
Lawrence said she felt sensitive ‘like a blister’ after becoming a new parent, which she recommended to anyone who was an actor(Picture: Cannes Film Festival)The actor added: ‘He’s just a guy. He’s like a musician in New York, and not a mental health professional. He doesn’t seem to be the guy who’s, like, looking at TikTok reels about the parenting.’
Die, My Love observes Grace’s breakdown in raw and realistic detail as the creatively-blocked, sexually-frustrated and confused new mother takes to stalking through the grass outside like a tiger, holding a kitchen knife, as well as scratching wallpaper off with her fingernails and disappearing for long periods of time while fantasising about the neighbour.
Die, My Love premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17. It is yet to receive a release date.
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