Director David O. Russell has stirred up plenty of controversy during his career relating to his behavior on set and relationships with his actors, but one collaborator with whom he really seems to click is Jennifer Lawrence. The actress had her big breakout in 2010 starring in Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone, but some of her best work since has been in Russell’s movies – resulting in three Oscar nominations and one win. The success is undeniable, and it apparently the relationship was kick started by a dead spider.
The New Yorker has published a Jennifer Lawrence profile in advance of her new film Die My Love arriving in theaters (her first project since the 2023 comedy No Hard Feelings), and one story included in the piece is about her audition for the film Silver Linings Playbook – the first movie that saw the actress and Russell working together. The filmmaker remembers that they met virtually instead of in person, and he recalls her both selling her own personality and her capacity to play the character simultaneously. Said the writer/director,
She was real and she was herself and she was the character all at the same time. Then she killed a giant spider in the bathroom behind her during the same Skype and returned to spontaneously demonstrate exactly how the spider died with all its extended limbs frozen together.
Recalling Jennifer Lawrence’s performance in Silver Linings Playbook, one can understand why this arachnid mimicry successfully sold David O. Russell on her capacity to play the female lead. The character, Tiffany Maxwell, is a bit of a manic weirdo, and one can properly sell that energy while pretending to be a dying spider with curled up legs.
In the profile, Jennifer Lawrence says that she essentially let her self be “wet clay” in David O. Russell’s hands, and it’s hard to argue with the results. Silver Linings Playbook ended up being nominated for eight Oscars in 2013, and Lawrence ended up taking home the Academy Award for “Actress in a Leading Role.” Since then, they have worked together two more times – in American Hustle and Joy – and both turns earned the star attention from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
It has now been a decade since Jennifer Lawrence and David O. Russell teamed up, but she has been working with plenty of other exciting collaborators. The aforementioned Die My Love is directed by Lynne Ramsay, and it has been earning acclaim following its festival premieres throughout the year (it will be heading to theaters on November 7). She is also now attached to star in the new thriller from the legendary Martin Scorsese, as What Happens At Night – co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio – is now in pre-production.