Jennifer Lawrence Speaks Up About First ‘Sexy’ Role Years After Her 2014 Nude Pic Hack: ‘I’ve Been Afraid’
Jennifer Lawrence is finally ready to take on a role she has feared for so long in her upcoming spy flick Red Sparrow, and it looks like she is also up for a look-back at the reason why she avoided similar roles in the past.
Speaking with Oprah Winfrey in an interview for The Hollywood Reporter, the Hunger Games star opened up about being afraid of “sexy” or “sexual” roles ever since her naked pictures were hacked and, ultimately, leaked into the internet in 2014.
“I haven’t done anything sexy or sexual,” the 27-year-old Mother actress explained.
“I’ve been afraid of that since 2014, when I got my pictures hacked. I just thought, ‘I’ll never do that again. I’ll never share that part of myself ever since it got shared against my will.'”
Three years ago, a website user on 4chan leaked pictures of over 100 actresses, singers, and other famous personalities, including Avril Lavigne, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Kirsten Dunst, Winona Ryder, and Jennifer Lawrence.
According to a report from the Guardian, nude photos of the female celebrities victimized by the breach circulated online but was later removed from the website. A spokesperson for Lawrence has since slammed the “flagrant violation of privacy” and warned that they have already sought the help of authorities to find and prosecute the culprits.
.@Oprah on Jennifer Lawrence: "You can feel there's a strong intelligence and a desire to use this moment for something greater than fame and fortune" https://t.co/oak0uvKJH0 #THRWomen pic.twitter.com/fjoAY6NBow
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 6, 2017
Since then, the 27-year-old actress has avoided being in any film that required her to look “sexual” or “sexy” because of the trauma she experienced from the hack, she told Vanity Fair in November.
“I can’t even describe to anybody what it feels like to have my naked body shoot across the world like a news flash against my will,” said J-Law.
“It just makes me feel like a piece of meat that’s being passed around for a profit.”
At the time, Jennifer Lawrence expressed the mixture of emotions she experienced after realizing that her privacy was violated and that some people—including celebrity blogger Perez Hilton—tried to benefit from it by exploiting the matter further. She also emphasized that while she may be a public figure, her body does not come “with the territory.”
“It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting.”
Fortunately, she appeared to have gotten over her trauma as she decided to take on a seductive role for Red Sparrow, explaining to Oprah that she felt like she was reclaiming a part of herself in the movie.
“When I said yes to Red Sparrow, I felt I was taking something back.”
Even so, she admitted to the famed host that ever since the nude photos hack, she had grown wary of technology. She dubbed the breach as something that not only steals intellectual property, adding that the whole experience was “violating on a sexual level.”
Jennifer Lawrence joins Joel Edgerton and Ciarán Hinds in Red Sparrow, a March 2018 film that follows the story of ballerina-turned-spy Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) who is recruited into a Russian intelligence service where she is forced to use her body to her advantage.
