Lulu Garcia Navarro

I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro and this is The Interview from The New York Times.

From The New York Times, this is The Interview.

I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro.

One of the things I often get asked about this job is, what is the hardest thing about interviewing famous people?

And the answer is both obvious and a real challenge.

Many stars, and especially female stars, have experienced the ugly side of celebrity culture, which has made them wary about opening up.

That's also true for today's guest, Jennifer Lawrence.

Lawrence had a heady start to her career, starring in two huge franchises, The Hunger Games and X-Men, and winning an Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook all before she turned 23.

Off camera, the public couldn't seem to get enough of her offbeat humor and outspoken persona.

Privately, though, Lawrence told me she was feeling pretty beat up and was waiting for the inevitable backlash.

And it came in waves of negative attention and headlines about whether she was too much, too annoying, too outspoken, a fake.

So after almost a decade of being in the limelight in 2018, Lawrence took a step back from acting, fired her agency and did some soul searching.

And now, as I found out when I sat down with her, she is demonstrably different.

We talked in advance of her new film, Lynne Ramsey's Die, My Love.

She plays a young mother losing her mind in rural Montana.

Lawrence told me her character, Grace, brought up a lot of complicated feelings because of her own struggles with postpartum symptoms.

We started, though, talking about how this project came to her, which involved a very famous director and his very private book club.

Here's my conversation with Jennifer Lawrence.

Thank you so much for joining the interview.

I'm so excited to talk.