On Thursday, actress Jennifer Lawrence sought to clarify a contentious remark she made earlier this week about female-led action films.
Lawrence said, “I remember when I was doing ‘Hunger Games,’ nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because we were told it wouldn’t work. Girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead,” in a video interview that was published on Wednesday by Variety.
Lawrence clarified to The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday that she did not intend to imply that she was the “only woman who has ever led an action film,” but rather to “highlight how fantastic it feels,” following internet backlash to her remark.
In particular, Lawrence said she wanted to dispel “ancient beliefs” about gender bias in Hollywood that has plagued the film and television business.
Lawrence told THR, “But that was my mistake and it came out incorrectly. Talking to a living legend made me nervous.
Lawrence’s views were deemed “untrue” by Franklin Leonard, the creator of The Black List, Hollywood’s yearly assessment of the most well-liked screenplays, although Leonard also highlighted a “genuine bias against women-driven action pictures.”
It is incorrect that Jennifer Lawrence was the first woman to appear in an action movie before The Hunger Games, Leonard wrote on Twitter. Hollywood had and still does have a real bias towards female-driven action films as a result of this absurd idea of who identifies with whom.
The approximately 45-minute in-depth conversation with Davis was primarily concerned with parenthood, unfair treatment in Hollywood, and their individual cinematic endeavors.
