Jennifer Lawrence used difficult parenting experiences to inform her performance
Jennifer Lawrence thinks suffering postpartum anxiety helped her performance in Die My Love.
Jennifer Lawrence thinks suffering postpartum anxiety has helped her as an actress.
The 35-year-old star - who has Cy, three, and a second son who was born earlier this year with husband Cooke Maroney - plays a struggling new mother in her latest film Die My Love and while she doesn't think it is necessary for someone to have children in order to play a parent, she thinks it is beneficial to be able to draw on personal experience.
She told People magazine: “I didn't really end up having really bad postpartum [anxiety] until my second [baby].
“I think that just added another layer [to my performance].
"I mean, I don't think that you have to have kids to play a parent by any means, but having that information about, you know, what a tiny person needs, and is looking for. Just having that information was helpful.”
Jennifer stars in Die My Love with Robert Pattinson, whose fiancee Suki Waterhouse gave birth to their daughter last year, and the pair bonded over their kids.
She said: “[We bonded] over our kids because — like any new parent knows — that’s the only thing you want to do is just, like, look at pictures and show people pictures and videos of [your] kids, so that's what we did.
“And his baby was like brand new, and mine was too."
The Silver Linings Playbook actress previously spoke about her struggles with postpartum anxiety and her belief her son "didn't like" her.
She told The New Yorker: “I just thought every time he was sleeping he was dead.
“I thought he cried because he didn’t like his life, or me, or his family. I thought I was doing everything wrong, and that I would ruin my children.”
Jennifer also admitted she is grateful to have friends who were "honest" with her about their experiences of motherhood.
She told Vogue magazine: "It’s so scary to talk about motherhood. Only because it’s so different for everybody.
"If I say, It was amazing from the start, some people will think, It wasn’t amazing for me at first, and feel bad. Fortunately I have so many girlfriends who were honest. Who were like, It’s scary. You might not connect right away. You might not fall in love right away. So I felt so prepared to be forgiving.
"I remember walking with one of my best friends at, like, nine months, and being like, 'Everyone keeps saying that I will love my baby more than my cat. But that’s not true. Maybe I’ll love him as much as my cat?'"
