“So what about this one?” I asked Darren as my designer Maria finished tucking my boobs into place.
Begrudgingly, he moved the L.A. Times away from his face to get a good look at me.
There I stood, Jennifer Lawrence, his 27-year-old rich and famous girlfriend, trying on dresses for the upcoming awards season that would take me from Hollywood to London wearing million dollar gowns and accessories. And there he sat, Darren Aronofsky, my nearly 50-year old, not nearly as rich or famous boyfriend.
I acted in films.
He wrote and directed them.
And that was how we started dating, on the set of his film mother!
Memories of our initial connection – and all of that sexual tension; as I tried and failed to to avoid banging my director – it still made me melt. But now wasn’t the time to swoon from memories of hot forbidden sex with the director that hired me for his passion project.
Instead, I posed before him in a fabulous metallic gown that hugged my curves, especially my hips, and spaghetti strap bodice that emphasized my nude arms and bust.
I gave him a little spin and let the hem dance for his eyes, the gold paillettes offering a chainmail-like finish that glistened in my sunlit living room. Maria had told me before putting it on that I would show up to the Oscars looking like a warrior princess if I chose this sexy Wonder-Woman inspired look from their fall lineup. No doubt, of all of the options available to me, this was the one she was not-so-subtly pushing me to choose.
“Can you even breathe?” Darren asked, his lack of enthusiasm apparent, undercutting Maria’s excitement.
I’d been holding in my gut for every single dress, but this one was causing a lot more discomfort because of how much it demanded that its wearer have a thin waist and hourglass figure. But lately, there’d been too many late night dinner and beer binges with my man for me to meet the requirements.
Maria wasn’t pleased with this exchange; she hadn’t been pleased with any of Darren’s comments since my fitting started. “Jennifer, you just need to shed some pounds, tone up that tummy,” she said, casually pinching the fat on my gut. “And tighten up your arms and booty. That’s all. We’ll get you on the right diet and exercise so it fits comfortably. We always do.”
“How about something that doesn’t require that she starve herself for the next few months?” Darren asked. “It would be nice to bring her breakfast in bed without her worrying that she is ‘too fat’ to have a slice of bacon.”
Maria was a world renowned Italian fashion designer, an artistic visionary that had been putting the most beautiful fashion models in the world into elegant dresses for decades.
To her, skipping bacon in bed was an easy sacrifice to be given the privilege of adorning her avant-garde creations. And since she was used to dealing with runway models and designed all of her dresses to fit them exclusively, she had little tolerance for anyone that was unwilling to get their bodies to conform to her standards of beauty and perfection.
She never had that problem with the supermodels she worked with. No wonder why so many of them had eating disorders.
And that was why Darren found the entire concept ridiculous; the enterprise of skinny women starving themselves to be even skinnier so they could wear overpriced dresses.
I should have known not to put the two of them together in a room. Their goals as artists were at odds.
“Jennifer, please tell me. Am I asking too much from you?” Maria asked me politely, too polite to be anything other than disingenuous. She was hoping that I would basically tell my annoying boyfriend to shut his mouth and let her work.
“Look, chill out, you’re both giving me a headache,” I said, giving neither Darren or Maria the satisfaction that they wanted in the proxy war they were fighting through me. “I have a great contract with you guys to wear this amazing stuff. I know what’s expected of me for awards season, so I’ll do what I have to do.”
This was true.
I was one of several A-list celebrities that had an endorsement deal with fashion giant Christian Dior; a list that included popstar Rihanna and fellow actresses Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, and Charlize Theron.
But I alone had first dibs on what I chose to wear during award season. I could choose anything the French maison had from any of their upcoming lineups, while the others, even with their own lucrative deals, had to wait for my choices before they were given the privilege to make their selections.
That privilege didn’t come cheap. After I somehow stumbled my way into being called ‘America’s Sweetheart’, my agent negotiated nearly $25 million over six years so I could become Dior’s brand ambassador. That meant wearing their fashion exclusively at every major red carpet event.
ME – A clumsy, awkward, middle-school dropout from Kentucky with uneven breast; a neck and chest full of asymmetrical moles that nearly every publication felt the need to photoshop out of their pages, and two uncoordinated feet that could barely walk in their heels without stumbling. I fell down wearing their heels and gowns twice at the Oscars, and at several other red carpet premieres.
Somehow I was this French companies first choice to headline their lineups, appear on their magazines, wear their best gowns, and walk in their sexiest shoes. And they were willing to pay me millions to do it.
See, people mistakenly think I got rich from movies. But fuck if I did.
I was offered $250,000 to do X-Men: First Class and $500,000 to do the first Hunger Game movie. Good money but those salaries didn’t make me a millionaire. It only made people wonder why I couldn’t afford to fly first class everywhere even though I had a hit movie in the theater.
The truth was I wasn’t in a position to negotiate for more money at that time; either I accepted the relatively low offer to get my foot in the door to star in that major blockbuster or that door would be slammed in my fucking face.
There were no counter offers or deep negotiation. I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers or watch them choose someone else that was willing to work for less. So I told my agent to accept on the spot.
So while film gave me fame, it was the world of fashion that initially gave me wealth. Feeling financially empowered for the first time, it was a check I received from fashion that I used to buy my first house.
It was fashion, or more specifically, what I chose to wear to the red carpet, that took Jennifer, a girl that rode ponies all day in a town nobody ever heard of and made her into J-Law, a celebrity that walked her dog in Beverly Hills.
So when it came to red carpet season, I would diet. I would exercise. And I would deny myself of bacon in bed, even when I wanted nothing in the world more than that delicious, salty and crunchy pig belly.
Being paid to be their brand ambassador was worth it. Even if I hated what I had to do to fulfill my contract obligations.
And Darren knew how much I hated it.
He listened to every off-hand comment I made about how much gut I needed to lose in the next few weeks. He was there when I had to decline going to dinner because I was on a diet that wouldn’t allow for me to go to that great new Jamaican Jerk restaurant that opened. And he would become furious, ranting and raving in the most eloquent and adorable way when I ever told him I was ‘getting fat’.
It made me laugh. And it made me appreciate how defensive over me he could become.
But while it was sweet watching him fight for me, in the way your man fighting for you is always kind of sweet, it wasn’t what I needed from him right now.
I was his girlfriend, but I was also a business woman with priorities that I needed to handle without complaint. And his complaints were not what I wanted as I worked with a leading fashion designer that had flown all the way out to my home to do her job.
I wasn’t a damsel that needed saving.
And I wasn’t a baby.
But that was what I felt like sometimes when he would argue for what he felt was best for me. Hell, looking at the age gap between us, I literally was a baby when he was graduating college. Because of this, there was always this weird power imbalance that emerged when he got too angry, too defensive over my life, my career.
And with it, a weird balancing act of giving him room to be my sweet and concerned boyfriend without it feeling like something resembling a daddy-protecting-his-little-girl relationship.
“You don’t think she looks gorgeous in this, Darren?” my long-time stylist Jill asked, obviously trying to lighten the mood and focus all energy back to finding the right look for me. “Sexy as hell, right?”
“Of course she looks gorgeous and sexy as hell, that’s not the question,” Darren said, laying the newspaper down on his lap. “But she looked gorgeous and sexy as hell in the red gown, and the black one, and the other five she tried on. But I really am just more concerned with her picking a dress that is going to be comfortable for her, now and several months from now.”
“You’re no fun,” Jill tossed at him playfully.
Fun was how those first few Oscar fittings had been when I was first nominated for an Academy Award five years ago.
Jill, my hair-stylist Jordan, my mother and my best friends from home Laura and Rachel had joined me for the fitting. We spent hours trying on fabulous dresses, posing, strutting, taking photos, drinking champagne, and had a great time full of laughs. I was 21 then, it was all new to me; to all of us really, living that extravagant Hollywood life.
But the fun of awards season all had already come and gone. Rachel was having a baby so she was skipping this years ceremony, Laura was over the hassle of flights, fittings, and dieting, even though I offered to pay for her travel and gowns, and I had told my parents and brothers not to bother with coming this year since I wasn’t likely to be nominated for any awards.
I would have skipped awards season myself if it were completely up to me. But I was contractually obligated to be there. So I was going to drag Darren along as my date, hoping we could have fun together. I’d hoped to kill two birds today, and spend time with him while also being fitted and making my selections for the Globes, BAFTA, and Oscars. I’d hoped he would help me with my choices.
But that wasn’t going too well.
“Babe don’t be a pain in the ass.” I said, stomping my evening sandals on my hardwood floors. “Which dress do you like?”
“You should be excited to help her pick out her dress. This might be the last time you get to see her in the next two months,” Jill chided.
“Two months?” Darren scoffed.
“Please tell this man what’s on my itinerary,” I said knowingly at Jill.
“Well, in two days you have to host Jimmy Kimmel, then on to the Governors Awards, the Contenders Panel, the Women in Entertainment Breakfast,” she rattled off from her one-of-a-kind memory. This wasn’t just my upcoming schedule, it was hers and Jordan’s as well. “After that, you’re doing W Magazine, a Grazia Italia Photoshoot, then a sit-down with 60 minutes before getting up early the next day, probably around 4am so you can be glamorous for the Hollywood Reporter Breakfast by 7.”
“That’s just in the next few weeks,” Jordan chimed in.
“And after a week or so of rest, back on the road to New Orleans for the Unrig the System Summit where you’ll be a guest of honor and speaker, and then on to D.C. to begin your Red Sparrow press tour. You’ll attend a few luncheons, radio stations, a stop at a few museums for a few events – and we have you penciled in for Ellen’s birthday bash a few days later.”
“Which I wouldn’t miss for the world,” I said.
“So at most you’ll have two days of rest before we fly you back out to London, where you will attend the British Academy Film Awards, do a Vanity Fair cover shoot, attend your Red Sparrow premiere, and fly right back the next day to attend a 20th Century Fox Event in New York, do Colbert, Howard Stern, a few podcasts, and attend your Red Sparrow Premiere in Manhattan.”
“And that’s just what we have now,” Jill threw out. “There will surely be more events we add at the last minute.”
“Okay I get it,” Darren smirked. “My girlfriend is a hundred times more busy than I’ll ever know.” He looked over at me. “But is it wrong that I don’t want her stressing out about her weight while she is on the road non-stop for the next few months?”
“It’s not wrong Darren,” Jill said. “But she’s a big girl. She’s done this for five years now. She just wants your input. That’s why she invited you for her fitting. She values your opinion. She’s never invited any of her other boyfriends before.”
Perhaps it was the ego stroke of being the first – or maybe he just felt bad that she had implied that he was treating me like a baby – but he nodded his head in surrender and came over to be included in the process.
After assessing me a bit, he gave his input on what I was wearing, plus the previous dresses which he took time to compare with the photos taken from Jordan’s phone. He was surprisingly detailed in his feedback, even offering suggestions on makeup and hair options that would help each dress stand out more and bring out my features.
“You should definitely wear your hair down with this one, wavy, not-so-elegant, but fun, sexy,” he said as he looked at me in the Wonder Woman inspired dress before gently brushing the side of my cheek with his fingers. “Smokey eye shadow, dark lipstick. Walk in there carrying the patina of grace and power.”
“Hey, she would have settled for ‘Oh wow, this dress looks good sweetheart’, she didn’t ask you to take my job,” Jill laughed.
It shouldn’t have been surprising. Darren was a brilliant artist himself, with many years of experience in visual arts and working with costume designers, hair stylists, and makeup artists. He knew how to bring out a woman’s beauty.
His intelligent and artistic mind was what originally drew me to him in the first place. It certainly wasn’t the dad bod and flat caps he used to hide that he was balding.
“So you’re in agreement that she should wear this dress for the Academy Awards?” Maria asked Darren.
“Of all of the options, it’s the most striking,” Darren offered, the best compromise possible that allowed him to think this was stupid while still indicating that the gown looked amazing on me.
“So the badass warrior gown for the Oscars it is then,” Jill said as she pulled her phone from her pocket to snap some photos as reference for when she came up with a plan for my hair and makeup.
“Only after I do about a million more pilates,” I joked.
“And starve yourself,” Darren added, which got a laugh out of us even though we knew he wasn’t joking.
“Here, take some with my phone too,” I said to my man to keep him involved. I unlocked my cell and handed it to him before giving him a few different angles to photograph.
“How do the shoes feel?” Maria asked. “Tight? Just right?”
“They are a little tight,” I admitted.
“You wanna try a nine and a half?” she asked as she helped me carefully slide the dress down my hips until I was naked, save my too-small-for-my-clown-feet evening sandals.
Casual nudity was normal in fittings. Since many of my dresses were form fitting, I needed to get completely naked so they could get an accurate assessment on how the dress fit my body, and where I needed to tone up.
But where it was normal and almost boring to be naked while trying on clothes with my friends, stylists and designers around, there was a spark of excitement with Darren there. A spark that caught fire when he snapped a photo with my phone and completely distracted me from Maria.
“Jennifer, Jennifer!” he called out as if he were paparazzi, snapping more of my naked form. “This way Jennifer. Up top. For Vogue.”
“For Vogue? Well then I must,” I giggled before posing for him, hand on my thigh, hips out, my right shoulder pointing towards him. I peaked over my shoulder and saw Maria looking at our silly flirting with a blank expression.
“Ah beautiful Jennifer, perfecto!” Darren continued, snapping photos as I continued posing as if I were on the red carpet. “From the back Jennifer, give me one from the back!”
I turned, giving him that picture of my naked ass that he so wanted and somehow kept a straight model-esque face long enough for him snap at least five more photos; and then I laughed.
“Okay okay, you love the camera,” Maria stepped in to stop the naked photoshoot. “Back to work, back to work.”
We finished up the fitting, deciding that I’d wear a silk strapless black gown from their Dior Haute Couture spring selection for the British Academy, and a surrealism-inspired dress with tan, blue, grey, and red highlights for the Golden Globes.
After Maria and my stylists left, Darren and I walked my dog, showered, then cooked dinner together – vegan pesto pasta even though neither of us were vegans – before cuddling in bed as I tried to catch up on TV shows I never had time to watch.
But where I was concentrating on why Jon Snow would ever agree to a meeting with Cersei Lannister, Darren seemed so much more interested in what was on my phone. I thought he might have been digging through text messages or emails, which would have pissed me off. But when I looked over I saw that he was actually just flicking through my photos from the fitting.
“What are you doing?” I asked after putting the TV show on pause.
“Thinking.”
“About what? Jerking off?”
He leaned in closer to me and kissed my chin. “Actually, I was seriously thinking about how amazing it would be if you actually did show up to the red carpet wearing this.”
He brought the phone closer to my face. I grunted out an ugly laugh. “Wearing… nothing?”
“Well not exactly nothing,” he said, pointing to the evening sandals on my feet and bracelet on my wrist.
“Darren I am butt ass naked,” I said, actually taking the time to scroll through the photos he had taken of me. “And I should be deleting these right now.”
I gave him a look that he understood implicitly. I hadn’t taken these kind of photos since that 2014 iCloud hack that leaked hundreds of my naked photos onto the internet.
“I’ll delete em,” he said without another word, swiping at the screen to wipe my nudity away but for some reason; some burning desire to be seen that still lived inside of me despite the humiliation I suffered from having the whole world see me, I grabbed his hand.
“No, don’t,” I heard myself saying before I could even rationalize why I was saying it. I looked at the screen where his thumb was resting on a photo of me turning, caught midway between frontal and back nudity.
“How many of these did you take?” I asked while using my own fingers to flip through them, watching the naked image of me move like a picture book.
“I don’t know, must have been about twenty, maybe thirty,” he said.
I stopped at one of me smiling, looking so happy to be naked and free, standing in designer shoes with my chest proudly pointing forward; my pinkish nipples hard and erect on top of creamy white tits that needed a tan.
And then there was my vagina, adorned with the fine blonde hair on my mons veneris that Darren had convinced me to grow out. He loved a woman with a natural bush; made me look more mature he said, a choice of phrase I chose to accept as a compliment, and a necessary component for his attraction to me to feel less pervy.
I’d been shaving my pubic area bald since 14, mostly out of habit. It was as normal as shaving my legs and arms, just one more thing I did to keep my body groomed and keep me feeling desirable. So seeing a full bush down there was still something that was quite odd, still not something that felt like me.
But it was me in that photo and I must admit, I loved the way I looked standing there all confident and unashamed, looking like a model that didn’t care about a little bit of tummy, or that her bush wasn’t neat and tidy, or that she was exposed before clothed people.
I even saw a maturity about my naked body, my posture, and my face that I never really noticed while looking at myself in the mirror. Maybe it was because this time I was looking at myself through Darren’s eyes.
“Can you imagine it?” he scrolled through the photos of me wearing the various designer gowns I tried on earlier that day. “The biggest industry event of the year, where all of Hollywood comes together to celebrate how great it is. We all assimilate, become a monolith of wealth and privilege and corporately-engrineed beauty, pretending like we’re individuals, acting like we’re unique, all the while wearing tuxedos and gowns made by the exact same designers, with the exact same pretensions of forward-thinking styles.”
“Well that sounds depressing,” I said as I watched him flick through a montage of his cynical vision of awards season, what he saw me participating in by wearing just another dress from just another fashion giant.
And then he landed back on the naked photos of me. Kissing my neck and caressing my belly, I caught my breath as he continued speaking, this time whispering in my ear.
“But then, someone bold, someone with the audacity to be herself, someone wonderful and free of pretension, free of vanity,” he said. “She sheds the shackles of formality, steps outside the box of cultural respectability and modesty, lets her hair down, and dare I say, actually embraces the body she has rather than chasing after the body they want her to have.”
He kissed my lips, gentle but film, the perfect sweet kiss, before continuing.
“And something groundbreaking happens at this pompous, faux celebration of art known as the Academy Awards; a first in its history; this woman comes as she is, as she was born. Naked. Real. Natural. Beautiful.”
“Tell me more,” I purred, feeling alive as he mixed his gifted touch with his lovely voice.
I loved hearing Darren talk. It was the first attractive quality I noticed about him. The one that stood the test of time, even after I slept with him and got it out of my system.
He had a unique way of seeing the world and was a great storyteller, so conversations between us often turned into me just listening to him talk for hours. That might have normally been a nightmare, listening to your talkative boyfriend prattle on and on about himself.
But I found Darren interesting, mysterious, a puzzle I needed to solve, a song in my head I just wanted to have on repeat.
That was how he got a hot piece of ass like me in the first place. I’m not conceited, I would never actually seriously refer to myself as a hot piece of ass. But I do know that is how the world at large saw me. And I often tried to see myself the way everyone else did.
And how did the world see him? A mildly attractive but old director that was clearly out of my league.
So how does a mildly attractive but old guy get a hot piece of ass?
If not the casting couch (which there were rumors of, which royally pissed me off). Then he had to charm her panties off. And damn if Darren hadn’t done just that.
It started by him ignoring me at the Governors Ball in 2011. I first ‘met’ him at the Oscars – I know, I know, how trite, does life for Hollywood elite begin and end there? – but it wasn’t love at first sight or the first page of a romance script.
He was actually a bit of an asshole.
It was my first huge ceremony, my first Oscars after party, and my agent and publicist for Winter’s Bone had told me that I should network and make friends with directors and producers. Make a good first impression and they’ll remember you when they wrote their next scripts or greenlit their next big movie.
Though I was nervous, I wanted to be liked and loved by everyone, so I made it my business to go around shaking hands, giving out air kisses, and fake hugs, and telling everyone how wonderful they were, which they returned in full by telling me how great I was in Winter’s Bone.
I wasn’t even sure half of them had even seen the movie but I didn’t care at the time. Hearing famous people (I didn’t feel famous myself at the time) tell me nice things was a tremendous boost to my self esteem. The praise, even if they were lies, made me feel good. I was being accepted as one of them. A club full of phony, fake-friendly, beautiful people.
Sounds cynical, but when you’re 21 and it’s all fresh and new to you, your excitement won’t let the facade of Hollywood feel cynical. You just want to be accepted amongst the gods and goddesses.
So after I had basically made small talk and fake friendships with all of the relevant members of this exclusive circle I wanted to join, I went to the bar for a cocktail. My best friend Lindsey was the one that tapped me on the shoulder as I was snacking on a olive and whispered “Isn’t that the guy that made Requiem For a Dream?”
I turned to my right and sure enough, there he was, Darren Aronofsky (with a full head of jet black hair, then), the guy that made Requiem For a Dream. And more recently, the guy that had just been honored as a Best Director nominee for his film with Natalie Portman.
He lost the award to the guy that made The King’s Speech, so maybe that was why he was sitting alone at the bar with his head in a glass. I thought I could cheer him up.
“Hey I’m Jennifer Lawrence,” I clumsily said to him as if Jennifer Lawrence was a household name in February of 2011, a little tipsy from some drinks I’d gulped down at the Dolby Theater. “And this is my best friend Lindsey.”
“Nice to meet you Jennifer Lawrence and best friend Linsey,” he had replied, barely looking up from the dark liquor in his glass.
“We just wanted to say hey, and that we really love your movies. Especially your first one, Requiem for a Dream. Gosh. The ending. When that guy is like ‘do ass to ass!’ And me and Lindsey watch that and we’re like ‘woah what the fuck is happening?’ but we love it.”
I felt as if I wasn’t making any sense.
“Wait, I don’t mean we love’ ass to ass.’ We’ve never done that of course. We’re not lesbians,” I paused to see him looking at me as if was every stereotypical dumb blonde he had ever met, rolled into one drunken actress. “And I don’t mean to imply that the ‘ass to ass’ part is awesome because I realize it’s super depressing. It’s like the worst part of the movie. Not worst as in, ‘oh this sucks,” but really degrading and…Shit. I’m just trying to say you make really cool movies, man.”
“Okay. Thank you,” he said before taking another sip, still seemingly more interested in his drink than making small talk with me (or hearing me ramble on like an idiot.) “Though I must correct you – Requiem was actually my second feature. I made a film a few years before that called ‘Pi.’ High-contrast black and white film, very low budget.”
I felt like he was insulting me. Implying that because the film was black and white and indie, then of course I wouldn’t have seen it. But where was my rebuttal? The truth was that I hadn’t seen the fucking film. Never even heard of it. “Oh I must have missed that one. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. A lot of people skipped that one. Surrealist psycho-thrillers don’t really move the needle.”
“Well it sounds super interesting.” He took a sip of his drink and I did as well.
That long beat of awkward silence told me that it was time to end this introduction and let him get back to drinking his sorrows away.
“Anyway I’m glad Natalie won Best Actress for your film. Like, I wanted to win, I really did but I knew she deserved it. She was amazing. As was your direction.”
“I appreciate that Jennifer. I haven’t seen your work so I cannot return the compliment, but I do agree with you that Natalie was amazing. I too, think she deserved her win.”
I remember walking away from the bar and Lindsey saying to me “Is it just me, or was he a bit of an asshole?”
“Oh it’s not just you.”
“Right?” She grabbed more free food from a serving tray and began to mock his voice.“Oh you wouldn’t have heard of my first feature length motion picture. It’s black and white, and high contrast. You know, the little people are too stupid to like my post-modernist, surrealist, artsy-fartsy mumbo jumbo thriller.”
I laughed at her. “He’s probably just annoyed that he didn’t win Best Director for his stupid movie.”
“Ugh. I hate when I meet a celebrity I looked up to only to find out they are a pretentious asshole.”
I had agreed with her as we left to head to the Vanity Fair After Party.
But when I sobered up the next morning, his interaction with me didn’t render in my mind as an unpleasant one. He was the only Hollywood person I met there that didn’t make me feel as if our encounter was stilted and dishonest.
And that stuck with me. Especially when I got a call from my agent four years later while I was filming for ‘Passengers’. She had surprised me with news that Darren wanted to meet with me to discuss a possible role in his next feature film.
“Are you sure?” I had asked her. “Darren Aronofsky?”
“Yes. Guy that did ‘Black Swan.’”
“I know who he is. I’m just saying. I’m pretty sure that guy thinks I’m an airhead.”
“Not according to my phone call with his agent,” she all but sang gleefully. “I was told Darren has admired your work from afar for a long time. He’s writing this cerebral horror film specifically with you in mind. And get this, his agent also said this film is a passion project for him. Not a studio film. But a going back to his roots project. Female led. Full of metaphor and allegory and all of that kind of crap critics love. It’s probably a sure-fire Oscar nomination for you if he’s this invested in it.”
So I gave her the ok to give Darren my personal number and we had a conversation on the phone before I agreed to let him fly out to my hotel in Atlanta to tell me about his script in person.
(I also made sure to watch his first feature Pi before he showed up.)
He was very complimentary of me when we met, but not overly so. Most directors or producers showered me with praise while trying to convince me to do their movie. But Darren talked about very specific traits that he admired in my performances that matched the vision he had for his film.
“I’ve seen you play demure and meek but pivot towards righteous anger in a very organic and convincing manner – that is what this role will require,” he told me. “The camera will be on you, either your face, or your body, the entire runtime. The story lives and dies by your performance, every micro-emotion of yours will be captured. So I’m going to need the full range of not just your acting, but your being as a woman. I want your outer weaknesses on display but I also need your inner strength to shine through.”
He pitched the themes and story of the film, an allegory about climate change and human history with the biblical old testament used as structure. I was intrigued, especially with how blunt he laid out his plans for me. This was a challenge I craved.
“Look, I’ve worked with some of the most talented actresses in the game. Natalie. Amy. Lena. Rachel. Emma Watson. I love them, they are terrific. Wonderfully talented. But I’m going to attempt to break the actress that signs on for this. I want to capture her at her most fragile and vulnerable. And I know many of the women I worked with in the past would not be able to handle it.”
He took a pause before speaking again. “I remember reading about how David O. Russell would make Amy Adams cry every day on set. Humiliate her. How she had breakdowns and has vowed to never work with him again.”
He took a sip of his coffee to recollect his thoughts, now focused intensely on my face.
“But you worked with that same man, on that same set and charmed him into becoming his muse. That impressed me. And honestly, that dynamic is at the heart of my film. You’ve suffered through David’s directorial torment for how many films now? I’m amazed by how you can take his punishment and turn it into performance.”
“I try not to take it personally,” I shrugged. “I know they are only trying to get the perfect take – when chasing perfection, you can’t worry about hurt feelings.”
We had locked eyes then, not speaking for awhile as we admired each other. When it got too intense, I broke the eye contact and asked him if he wanted anymore coffee.
As I poured us more cups, he continued explaining his vision.
“I’m aiming for this film to be physically exhausting, emotionally draining, spiritually agonizing. I’m going to push you so far past your boundaries, that you’re going to hate me. But all for a purpose of eliciting that reaction from an audience as they watch someone so beautiful become so utterly destroyed and abused and used, and it makes them go ‘wow, I get it now. Jennifer Lawrence was broken on film, and I get it now.”
“You think you can break me?” I had tossed out at him playfully when I sat back down at the table.
He just smiled. “I’m going to break you. And you’re going to put the pieces back together.”
We ended up talking for about two hours and not just about the role he had for me. I also spent a considerable amount of time chatting with him about my own thoughts about religion, global warming, feminism, and the art and language of film. To be honest, I was desperately trying to prove to him that I wasn’t a complete idiot like my first impression at the bar might have given off.
Eventually I even brought it up, apologizing for sounding like a dummy during our first meeting.
“I didn’t think you were dumb, just drunk,” he laughed. “If it makes you feel any better. That same night, I watched your movie on my flight back to New York. Mesmerized by your performance. And that is why I’m dying to work with you. You’re the only one I’ve even considered for this part. You’re brilliant.”
I’d been called brilliant before. It came with the territory of acting in prestige films. But hearing Darren call me brilliant didn’t feel forced or false like it did any other time I heard it. And I remember smiling so hard as I tried to act like I didn’t adore his high praise of me.
We talked more about our first meeting, and I admitted that I thought he didn’t want to be bothered because he lost best director that year.
“I wasn’t upset about that at all,” he said. “I don’t make films for glory. At least my own. I was overjoyed for Natalie. Really, supporting her was the only reason I was there. I don’t like award shows, what they represent outside of honoring the artists. But after hours and hours of so many vapid conversations, it just beat me up until I found a bar where I could disappear. Your drunken ‘ass to ass’ praise of my work was actually my favorite part of the ball. You’re real, Jennifer, and I like that. Not so swallowed up by the PR machine and vomited out as some boring outline of a person.”
I knew after he left my hotel that I wanted to fuck him. But I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t. It would be in poor taste, I told myself.
So I called my agent and told her I was in. And Darren made artistic and financial sacrifices to be able to afford giving me his leading role.
That’s when I should have known I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise.
But I went in stubborn and naive, even after the three month period of rehearsal with Darren and the cast, where my feelings for him only intensified.
I won’t fuck him, I kept telling myself. He’s old and funny looking anyway.
But then I would talk to him on the phone and my heart would skip beats.
I couldn’t quite finger out why I was so into him. Was it just a simple crush I asked my friend Lindsey, as I tried and failed to describe to her over a late night phone call why I found him attractive.
But it dawned on me as Darren and I were having drinks late one night after a long rehearsal. I just liked hearing him talk. It was that simple. Hearing him talk turned me on.
The rest of the cast had turned in for bed. But I didn’t want to sleep. I just wanted to listen to him.
I fell in love listening to him.
About his four years at Harvard.
About his time working as a biologist in Kenya and Alaska.
About his dedication to environmental activism.
About his complicated thoughts on god and religion.
About raising a child with his ex-wife.
About his love of art and film and comic books.
About his movie mother! And what it meant to him.
He was smart, and cultured, and funny. And smart, cultured, and funny was attractive. Ditto his talent of storytelling – and how sexy he sounded telling a story.
I imagine I looked so silly, big ass grin on my face as I chugged beer from a mug, outdrinking him, listening to him talk for hours. But I enjoyed the sound of his voice, probably more than he enjoyed the sound of his own voice, which is saying something considering auteurs are notorious self-lovers.
I tried flirting with him but he never went for it.
“I respect my leading ladies too much to ruin our professional relationship by going there,” he said at one of my fishing attempts to see if he wanted to go fuck in the bathroom.
Of course I hadn’t phrased it like that, I’m a good girl afterall. I might have voiced my wanton desires more as a “so what’s your philosophy on mixing business and pleasure and dating one of your leading ladies?” with a flirtatious shove to his shoulder while we sat at the hotel bar.
Okay so it wasn’t the classiest way of gauging his interest in dating me but to be fair, it was midnight and I was drunk and horny. And since he refused to acknowledge the elephant in the room that was our sexual tension, somebody had to be just a tad bit forward.
But he never took the bait, even as we talked for a few more hours late into the night before he walked me to my room, then all but ran away before I had the opportunity to invite him inside for coffee or whatever the line was.
Of course he had to be a chivalrous gentleman that wanted to make sure I got to my room safely, and of course he didn’t want to ruin a fine working relationship with sloppy drunk coitus.
Of course, he had to be on his best behavior, a nice guy. A trustworthy father that refused to take advantage of a girl young enough to be his daughter. Of course he had to be that nice, that respectful, that unaffected by lust. Of course he had to ignore my flirting and dismiss it as ineffectual nothings from an awkward chick that had one-too-many beers.
Of course he had to be all of those things because those were the things that kept our relationship sexless.
And those things only made me want him more.
But it eventually boiled after we started filming, and his attempts to break me on set led to me cycling through a tremendous amount of conflicting emotions.
He was so charming and friendly during our late night talks but so demanding and cold on set. It was easy to handle rude comments from other directors like David O. Russell, I found their diatribes amusing more than anything, but it was damn impossible not to take Darren’s criticism personally when the guy yelling at me was the source of my masturbation fantasies.
I couldn’t listen to him call my performance “not good enough” and demand I do it again for the 30th time without feeling dejected.
It was hard living up to his idea of perfection. And I was failing every time he yelled ‘action’.
I had feelings for him after all. And they needed to be dealt with.
I went to his trailer after an exhausting day of failing to impress him, and picked a fight about him being impossible to please. I don’t even remember what I said, but whatever it was, it provoked him enough to raise his voice until we were both shouting insults back and forth at each other.
It felt good to scream at the man that had me so sexually frustrated.
It even felt good to hear him call me a crybaby that needed to grow up. Because then I got to call him a bully that got off on punishing women. And on and on it went until his tongue was down my throat and I was fumbling with his belt buckle.
Right there on the floor of his trailer, we took our frustrations out on each other by fucking like animals.
We lay there after it was over, sweating, panting, still a little angry, but mostly relieved, before he asked “Did you plan for that to happen?”
I removed his cock from inside of me and looked down at the aftermath of our argument. “Did you plan to cum inside me?”
But I wasn’t complaining.
And now a year and a half later, he wasn’t complaining either. Just whispering in my ear, twisting my hard nipples, telling me a fantasy slash bedtime story about a blonde-haired girl that looked like me, and shared my name but was doing something I could never do – showing up naked at the most-viewed red carpet in the world.
“This woman, Jennifer Lawrence, America’s Sweetheart, America’s Darling, a bit unpolished, politically incorrect, but spiritually put together, she walks her naked body down the carpet, madness they all say, what has possessed her to crash this elitist gathering by showing us what true poise and courage and progressiveness looks like?”
His hand was inside of my panties now, fingers brushing the hair of my mound, and I was spreading my legs to allow him easier access. But he wasn’t done telling his story, even when a lone finger dipped into my wet pussy.
“Imagine yourself Jennifer, completely naked, a thousand cameras flashing at the same time, illuminating your nude body. Everyone sees you. Your lovely breast, the way your nipples are hard right now, your wonderful bottom, your natural bush, they see all of you.”
“They’ve already seen all of me,” I managed to moan as a second finger found its way inside me.
It was still such a confusing admission. The day I received a call from my publicist was the worst day of my life.
“Jennifer, we have a problem,” she said.
I remember googling my name and nearly collapsing when I saw that leaks of my private naked photos were freely circulating on the internet. Within minutes I receiving non-stop calls and texts, not just from friends and family, but colleagues in the industry, producers, my endorsers, and reporters.
I freaked out and completely disconnected from the world, shutting off my phone, shutting off my internet, shutting off from everyone.
My mom had to send over a family friend to make sure I was okay.
I wasn’t.
Everyone alive now could google my name and find pictures of my tits, my pussy, my butthole if they wanted. Pictures I had sent my then boyfriend Nick during our mostly long-distance relationship. Pictures I took because they made me feel sexy during a period of my life where I was supposed to be experimenting and growing into a sexual being.
Now that private part of me was public.
This cannot be happening, was all I kept telling myself.
But ‘The Fappening’, as they later termed it, which included many more celebrities having their naked photos leaked online, was happening, and I was at the center of it.
But the most depressing part about the whole scandal was that the night it happened, after the tears I cried, I sat in my bed, thinking about all of the people that were currently sharing my naked pictures, talking about them…jerking off to them. And I became painfully aroused.
Fuck, why did being exposed against my will turn me on?
Most of my friends knew I had a bit of an exhibitionist streak. The running joke by my closest girlfriends was that if you spent any time around me, eventually you’d see me naked.
It wasn’t anything I ever planned; I just liked being naked. The freedom of it all. But also the somewhat erotic but playful energy that came with showing my boobs off or letting my ass and twat air out for a gag.
Some of the photos and videos that were leaked were just normal days of me being a goof with my friends, which usually included me flashing them or just running around with no clothes on.
“You’re such an exhibitionist slut,” my celebrity friend Amy Schumer remarked one night after I wound up dancing naked on a table on a dare during a get together with some celebrity friends.
Emma Stone, another celebrity friend, was there that night and commented “If Jen wasn’t a celebrity, she would be that drunk college girl dancing naked on stage trying to win a wet-t-shirt contest.”
“The excuse would be trying to win the wet-t-shirt contest,” Amy said. “But she’d really be up there because she’s just an exhibitionist slut.”
I loved my friends because they were blunt and honest. A more fragile girl might have taken their comments personally, but Amy was a comedian, and Emma also pulled no punches, so I had simply agreed with them and laughed at how on point their analysis of me was.
But even if I were an exhibitionist slut at heart, that was something I kept to myself, private and hidden away from the rest of the world, who only saw me was America’s relatable girl next door.
It felt unfair that my image was so suddenly corrupted against my will by some loser hacker determined to humiliate women.
I felt as if someone had broken into my house and stolen something from me that I could never replace.
But unfair as it was, and as wrong as it was for anybody to click and view those pictures without my consent, I still couldn’t help masturbating furiously to the conflicting thoughts I had over being so violated.
The orgasms that rocked my body that night were the deepest I ever experienced. The tears, and pain, and humiliation only made them richer. And even now, if I was ever on the road, without a partner to help scratch that sexual itch, all I had to do was google the naked photos of myself, see how many sites they were still on even after I sued to have them removed, and I would become hot and bothered.
I would read the comments anonymous users made about me, while furiously rubbing my clit.
‘Does this girl ever keep her clothes on in private?’
‘The sheer amount of J-Law nudes is astonishing.’
‘I’m gonna use her butthole picture as my wallpaper background on my phone.”
‘This bitch obviously has no self-control. She has to be a narcissist to have this many naked photos of herself saved.’
‘This is going to make her boring hunger games movies more interesting to watch.’
‘LOL @ J-Law literally being on a casting couch. This is how all of these Hollywood A-listers get their roles. Become literal whores for the Harvey Weinsteins and David O. Russels of the world.’
‘After seeing her fartbox, dare I say, the *mystique* that surrounds ‘Americas Darling’ is gone. Just another Hollywood slut.’
And within seconds, I would throw my head back, shaking with confusing pleasure from a dizzying orgasm.
And then I would get angry all over again; at those fuckers, but also at myself for getting off to their mean spirited comments. And soon enough, that anger was just depression. I felt like I had been gangbaned by the entire internet, had a few orgasms from it, but was left used and abused like a cheap whore on a dirty bathroom floor.
I didn’t feel sexy anymore. I didn’t feel beautiful or valuable. I felt violated and cheapened. Like the entire perception of me had changed, and suddenly no one took my acting seriously anymore. No one took me seriously anymore.
How could I ever speak about women’s issues again without the whole world laughing at me? How could Katniss Everdeen be role model for little girls when she had her tits and pussy plastered all over the internet?
These thoughts became daily stresses in my life, which contributed to the downfall of my next two relationships. If I couldn’t feel sexy, how could I please the men in my life?
Darren was the first person to convince me to take back the power these people had over me; he was the reason why I decided to show boobs on camera for the first time in his movie.
The scene involved a mob of sycophants brutally attacking and beating me within an inch of my life, ripping off my clothes, stomping on my face, and screaming gendered insults at me the entire time.
“Die cunt!”
“Dirty whore!”
“Slut!”
“Bitch!”
“Fat pig!”
“Take that tramp!”
An image akin to being gangraped.
It took four days to film the full sequence.
Four days of attacks. Four days of being stripped. Four days of hearing an angry mob yell at me like I was a nothing more than a whore that deserved whatever I had coming to me.
Four days of searching for my darkest, most painful feelings, as broken and fragmented as they were, and using them as inspiration to fuel a performance that Darren was pleased with.
So many retakes, so many broken pieces of myself I had to find and present to the world.
It took so much out of me, tearing at my softest, most vulnerable emotions just to create art, that I ended up breaking a chest rib and tearing my diaphragm in the middle of filming the scene.
After Darren yelled cut, I was hyperventilating and crying so badly that I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t snap out of the role.
The medics stuck an oxygen mask over my face as Darren came over to me to say that the scene was slightly out of focus, and that he needed me to do it again, with even more emotion.
“Fuck off,” I remembered telling him.
He just appeared over me with a big smile and squeezed my hand. “You were brilliant, Jennifer.”
He had successfully pushed me past my farthest boundary and broken me – exactly as he said he would.
Darren helped me heal throughout the filming of his movie. Not just physically, but emotionally.
We were still sneaking around to have our late night trysts. There was an unspoken industry rule about not sleeping with your castmates and crew while in production, so we were content to break the rules behind closed doors, and act like nothing happened the next day on set.
But our nights together didn’t just begin and end with great sex. The sex was great, but what kept me coming back were the talks we had with each other afterwards. Pillow talk that found me telling this guy I barely knew secrets about myself that not even my closest family and friends knew, which included, the conflicting feelings I had about my exposure to the world.
I even cried one of those nights, and I hated myself for it. I didn’t cry in front of guys, definitely not after having sex. What a girl moment that was.
But he kissed my tears away, such a guy, and found little ways to help me find my lost self confidence.
What helped was how obsessed he was with my body. He loved touching my body, smelling and tasting my body; and then there are the times when I caught him just looking at my body, reading it like a book, even sometimes while I slept.
Is it creepy that an artist likes to look at you while you sleep nude? Yeah, probably. But at that moment in my life, I guess I wanted – no – I needed his eyes to scrutinize my body. I craved the attention, and got butterflies from that look on his face as he looked me over.
But his obsession with my nude form had apparently morphed into a fantasy of showing my naked body to others, not on film, but on the red carpet, as some kind of artistic or political statement.
And with his fingers playing with my pussy, and his masculine voice dripping into my ear, I was there for it becoming my fantasy too.
“They stole those pictures from you, Jennifer,” he said. “But this is different. The difference between someone breaking into your home versus you inviting them in. You’ve decided to show them your body, your beautiful, lovely, perfect naked body. On your terms. As a fuck you to all that think they hold power over you because they’ve seen you naked. As a way to recapture what was lost and flaunt your confidence with your body, a power they can never steal from you again.”
He used his other hand to remove my tank top, freeing my breast, all the while staring hard at my flushed face, on the verge of orgasm. He kissed both of my breast before moving my hands there, instructing me to play with my hard nipples while he played with my pussy.
“Imagine it,” he said as he rubbed my clit faster. “Imagine them all looking at you.”
I closed my eyes and let his voice lead my imagination to my deepest exhibitionist fantasies.
“All of the photographers, hundreds of them, snapping photos of you,” he said, his warm breath blowing against my open mouth. I swear I could taste the mint of the toothpaste that he had just used to brush before bed. “Pose for them. Show them your delicious tits. Point your chest forward. Proudly show them those nipples.” I instinctively pinched them, sending warm energy through my body.
“Yeah, just like that. Now turn and show them that sexy ass of yours,” and in my minds eye, I was watching all of my peers in Hollywood watching in shock as I turned to show them my butt.
Soon enough, I was thinking about the pop culture memes that came about after a photo of my pink asshole leaked.
South Park had parodied my leaked photos in an episode that tried to justify looking at private images of people.
The character Cartman laid out his thesis, which I suspected were the creators thoughts as well: “We live in a world where privacy is gone. Okay? It’s just gone, bud. Your weiner my balls, they’re public domain. You can get on the internet right now and look at that chick from Hunger Games’ butthole.”
And then there was the ridiculous story that blew up around the election surrounding Ken Bone, some random guy that asked a question at the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton.
He became some kind of ironic American Hero because of his name and everyday guy appearance, and I even thought he was kind of cool. Until it came out a little bit later that he was an asshole on reddit. An asshole that apparently had seen mine and thought I was partially to blame for why he had.
“Maybe she should have been more careful with her pics, but the bad guys are still the ones who sought them out and looked at them. By which I mean guys like me. I saw her butt hole. I liked it.”
While I should have been angry at these thoughts invading my fantasy, it was clear that what turned me on wasn’t what was always logical; and thinking about the entire world talking about my butthole only intensified my conflicted arousal.
“Should I show them my butthole?” I asked Darren, as he continued pleasuring me.
“You want to, don’t you?”
“Mmm,” was my only response as I began to tense up and writhe to the movement of his fingers.
“Now show them your cunt. That pink, juicy cunt of yours.”
A moan escaped my lips at the word cunt, and the thoughts of showing mine to anyone, everyone that dared to look. And with me getting closer to my peak of arousal, the images that fueled this erotic fantasy started to become sharper, closer, more real, more affecting. The crowd of well dressed people looking at my naked body started to become individuals I recognized, not just vague indistinguishable faces.
I saw Jason Freeland, the director that cast me in my first movie.
I saw Matthew Vaughn, the director that cast me in my first big budget movie.
I saw David O. Russell and Francis Lawrence, two directors I worked with frequently.
But then there were other faces, of directors I admired and longed to work with, Eastwood, Spielberg, Tarantino, Scorsese, Allen, Lynch, Anderson.
The fantasy was pleasing, but needed to get even dirtier, so I found myself imagining Darren’s best friends Sean, Scott, Dan, Mark, and Ari, who he worked with often on his movies, seeing his girlfriend completely naked.
I was almost there.
But I needed more. More eyes. More butterflies. More shock. More people to witness my self-exposure.
Truthfully, it wasn’t that I needed more people to see me, I needed more men. The crowd of people in my fantasies only included men. Realizing that made it easier to picture who exactly I wanted in my fantasy.
More guys, more important guys, guys I knew, guys I worked with, hot guys, ugly guys, old guys, young guys, available guys, married guys, guys I respected, guys I wanted to respect me; guys, guys, guys, I needed to imagine all of them, the full spectrum of Hollywood maledom, dressed in black Tuxedos, staring at me, shocked by my brazen behavior, and maybe even a little turned on as they watched me show off my goods like the little exhibitionist slut I was.
I want you all to see me.
Tom Cruz, Will Smith, Tom Hanks, Jared Leto, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, Harrison Ford, Vin Disel, Daniel Day Lewis, Denzel Washington, De Niro, Pacino, Nicholson, even guys that weren’t alive like Marlon Brando and James Dean…
Adam Sandler, Liam Neeson, Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx,
……Larry…..LARRY DAVID!
That made my stomach do somersaults. Larry David was my celebrity crush, the one really old guy that I would absolutely let have me if ever he wanted me, no questions asked. And thinking about him seeing me totally naked, yeah, that brought another moan out of my mouth as Darren continued rubbing my clit just right.
As soon as I felt Darren’s lips kissing my neck, the images shattered in my mind and I lost control of myself and had a massive orgasm. One of the best I’d had in a long time.
Not long after that I fell asleep in his arms.