Jennifer Lawrence is widely recognized as one of Hollywood’s top actors, but even stars of her caliber can make significant errors that linger in memory. While her famous stumble at the Oscars in 2013 is well-known, another lesser-known incident involves a medication mishap on the set of the Hunger Games that left her hallucinating.
In a conversation for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Lawrence recounted the incident to fellow actor Leonardo DiCaprio, revealing this wasn’t her only such error.
“When I did Red Sparrow, I took an Adderall instead of a sleeping pill, and then I didn’t sleep all night,” she explained.
“I was taking hot showers in a panic. I am not somebody who can function without sleep. And then I had to say the phrase ‘Senate Armed Services Committee’ in a Russian accent. That sucked.”
Lawrence also mentioned a second mistake: “I also once took an Ambien in the morning, thinking it was something else.”
DiCaprio jokingly noted: “Those are key screwups.”
The Hunger Games scene became particularly challenging for Lawrence due to this misunderstanding.
“It was a dance scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the second Hunger Games movie. I was hallucinating. Elizabeth Banks got really annoyed with me. Maybe she didn’t know that I was on an Ambien.”
DiCaprio commented, “It almost shuts off a certain part of your brain,” to which Lawrence concurred: “Certainly the memorizational part of it. I kept asking the director ‘and what does this mean? And what does this mean? And what does this mean?”
“And she just threw her sides and was like ‘Fine. Let’s just keep talking about it.’”
Despite the on-set confusion, the scene turned out well, although Lawrence might not have seen it, as she, like DiCaprio, seldom watches her performances.
In their interview, Lawrence asked, “Have you rewatched Titanic?”
“No. I haven’t seen it before,” DiCaprio replied.
Lawrence encouraged him: “Oh, you should. I bet you could watch it now, it’s so good.”
DiCaprio admitted he isn’t fond of viewing his own films: “I don’t really watch my films,” he said, then asked, “Do you?”
Lawrence shared that she usually avoids her own work too, though curiosity has led her to watch some.
“No. I’ve never made something like Titanic, if I did I would watch it,” she explained.
“Once I was really drunk, I put on American Hustle. I was like, ‘I wonder if I’m good at acting?’ I put it on, and I don’t remember what the answer is!”