In a newly-published conversation with Adam Sandler for Variety, Jennifer Lawrence discusses the pressures that the Mother! press tour put on her relationship with director Darren Aronofsky. Namely because he just wouldn’t shut up about it.
Jennifer explained that while she typically avoids reading reviews of her films, Darren made that near impossible. “Dating the director was different, because we’d be on the [press] tour together,” she told Sandler. “I’d come back to the hotel, and the last thing I want to talk about or think about is a movie. He comes back from the tour, and that’s all he wants to talk about.”
She continued, “I was doing double duty trying to be a supportive partner while also being like, ‘Can I please, for the love of God, not think about Mother! for one second.'” In end, the actor explained, she had to put her foot down. “And then he would start reading me reviews, and I finally was like, ‘It’s not healthy. I’m not going to do it, because if I read it, I start getting defensive.'”
Jennifer and Darren recently separated after being together for a year. Of her initial impressions of the Mother! script, the actor recalls a rather visceral response. “I threw it across the floor,” she told Sandler. “I didn’t even want it in my house. I thought it was so fucked up on such a deep level. But I knew that’s what [Darren] was doing.”
The film has delighted some audiences and disappointed others (see: booing at Venice) with the critical response leaning positive — though most reviewers agreed there was more comedy than real carnage.
READ: everything you need to know about darren aronofsky’s mother!