Jennifer Lawrence Calls ‘No Hard Feelings’ “The Funniest Script I’ve Ever Read”
Jennifer Lawrence and Director Gene Stupnitsky on the set of Columbia Pictures’ NO HARD FEELINGS.
The summer movie season may be filled with blockbusters, epic superhero movies, or even an odd Christopher Nolan film paired up against a doll-centric movie. But in the midst of all of that, Sony wants to make a splash with a new oddly-romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence.
No Hard Feelings is featured in Entertainment Weekly‘s Summer Preview, where Lawrence and director/co-writer Gene Stupnitsky talk about the behind-the-scenes process of making the film. The story was apparently inspired by a real Craigslist ad, where a married couple was looking for someone to date their extremely awkward 19-year-old kid. After reading that, Stupnitsky went down the rabbit hole of figuring out who that woman could be, and two years later, he handed a script to her dear friend, Jennifer Lawrence:
STUPNITSKY: “I read it, and I thought, ‘This is wild. Who is the woman that answers this ad?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, that’ll be a great role for my friend Jennifer Lawrence.’
LAWRENCE: “Gene read the Craigslist ad to me, and I died laughing. I thought it was hilarious, but there wasn’t a script or anything. I just thought he had a funny idea. And then a couple years later, he handed me the funniest script I’ve ever read in my life.”
Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) and Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) in Columbia Pictures’ NO HARD FEELINGS.
The 19-year-old kid, Percy, is played by Andrew Feldman, with Matthew Broderick (who wears a very funny wig that was the butt of many on-set jokes) and Laura Benanti as his parents. While Julia Louis-Dreyfus might be a comedic icon for Lawrence, the actress said there isn’t much Veep humor in the new movie; instead, expect plenty of Dumb and Dumber or Armando Iannucci:
“I guess I like cringe humor. I do like the idea of comedy that makes people uncomfortable. I love when people are watching through their hands, through their fingers. Nothing makes me happier. And I love a lot of the stuff that Harold Ramis did, his movies.”
Additionally, don’t expect a lot of improv, she says:
“I think it’s more freeing to have dialogue that you love. And it can be scary sometimes. I also don’t think that the results are great when it’s just like, ‘Okay, go.’ Not everybody’s on the same page — literally. So, we mostly stuck to the writing because it was really good, but there was also freedom to try things.”
Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) in Columbia Pictures’ NO HARD FEELINGS.
No Hard Feelings will hopefully mark a return to form for the comedy genre, which has been painfully dying on the big screen, as the director explained. Though, as Lawrence added, it’s always a risk to put a movie out in theaters:
STUPNITSKY: “Comedies in general haven’t really been made that much, especially in the theatrical space. At the time it didn’t necessarily feel like we were making a throwback, but I think once people saw the trailer, that was the reaction. I was like, ‘Oh, that makes sense.'”
LAWRENCE: “A theatrical release these days is, uh… It’s a test. You get tested publicly, and everyone knows if you pass through. But I feel we’re putting our best foot forward.”
And in this case, it might be more dangerous than ever. The film, slated for a June 16 release, is set to go up against Warner Bros.’ big tentpole The Flash, and the latest Pixar film Elemental. Of course, No Hard Feelings can act as good counter-programming against both of those pics, and also has the chance of having some real legs at the box office, because the counter-programming argument can also be applied to pretty much any film it will go up against for the following month. And yet, if the Priyanka Chopra Jonas-led rom-com Love Again has taught us something is to never go up against a huge superhero flick.
Check out the first teaser for the film here:
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
