Why Jennifer Lawrence chose to do X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

From Digital Spy

We think it's fair to say that some of the current cast of X-Men seemed ready to move on after Bryan Singer's divisive Apocalypse arrived last year.

So we were a bit surprised to hear that Jennifer Lawrence would be coming back for more in the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but it turns out that she had strong reasons for wanting to stick with her character, Mystique.

"My contract was up, I didn't have to do another one, but if I didn't do another one, what would her story be?" she told Digital Spy.

"I felt like I owed it to the fans, and I owed it to the character to follow her journey, to be fair to the movies, and not be like, 'I don't want to do another X-Men!' And then I just never show up and everyone's very confused about the Mystique they've been following for the last three films."

Photo credit: Dave J Hogan / Getty Images
Photo credit: Dave J Hogan / Getty Images

Mystique has been a central part of the X-Men reboot that began with First Class, so we appreciate J-Law's commitment to her story!

Lawrence will shortly be seen in Darren Aronofsky's psychological horror mother! – which was a hard watch even for its star.

"I saw the movie last night with an audience," she said. "And I'm in the movie – I know everything that happens, it's me, so I know everything's okay, and I was clutching my chest, grabbing arms, closing my eyes.

"It's really, really assaulting, I was really shaking when I left the movie, and I was like, 'What have we done? What have we unleashed?'"

Related: Darren Aronofsky addresses Jennifer Lawrence's mother! age-gap controversy

mother! deals in part with invasion of privacy, something Lawrence joked that she "[didn't] know anything about".

"Let me see, being stalked, being chased... No, I love my job and I love my fans, but I deserve personal boundaries, just because I'm a human. Nobody likes their personal space being violated, so I still love my job, but of course I don't like my personal space being violated."

Photo credit: Paramount
Photo credit: Paramount

Aronofsky added: "That question came up in Venice at the press conference. It was the last question, and just after it was answered, there was a stampede for autographs.

"There was a guy in a wheelchair that was pushed to the side, it was terrifying. I jumped back, terrified. Suddenly, there was a wall of people coming at you, and it was crazy, because it was just after that question.

"It's purely coincidental that part of it – I wasn't thinking about celebrity at all, but it clearly is coming out to a lot of people. Also, because it features big movie stars, there's that meta-level, but there wasn't a conscious effort to make a comment about that, it's just one way masses react to the people I was talking about."

mother! will be released on September 15, with X-Men: Dark Phoenix following on November 2, 2018.


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