Jennifer Lawrence has long portrayed mothers on screen, but only since becoming one herself has she begun to grasp the profound realities behind the role.
The actress recently spoke candidly about her “terrible postpartum anxiety,” revealing that she even turned to ChatGPT for breastfeeding advice, and found herself deeply identifying with the isolation of the protagonist in her upcoming film Die, My Love.
In conversation with The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino, Lawrence described the months following the birth of her second child as far more difficult than her first experience.
“I just thought every time he was sleeping he was dead,” she admitted.
“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.”
It is a confession both intimate and achingly familiar, the quiet struggle of new motherhood stripped of glamour or pretense.
Her upcoming film opposite Robert Pattinson, Die, My Love, appears to mirror this transformation—a visceral exploration of early motherhood that captures the oscillation between confusion, fury and tenderness.
Motherhood has also altered how Lawrence perceives her body. She shared plans for breast surgery later this year, noting that pregnancy and breastfeeding had reshaped her in unexpected ways.
“Everything bounced back, pretty much, after the first one,” she said.
“Second one, nothing bounced back.”
Behind her humour lies something steadier: a woman who no longer feels the need to perform relatability. Reflecting on her early fame, she admitted she was “pissed” at the amount of projects and press she was doing.
“I look at those interviews, and that person is annoying. I get why seeing that person everywhere would be annoying” she said.
Once defined by her viral candour, Lawrence now speaks with a steadier kind of openness, one rooted in self-acceptance and maternal awareness.
“I realised that if I was nervous and pissed when we left the house, they would feel that in their little bodies,” she reflected.
On the set of Die, My Love, that awareness shaped her performance. She refused to enact cruelty toward the baby in the story, instead exploring the frustration that exists around motherhood rather than within it.
“You’re not mad at your baby,” she said. “You’re mad at your husband, who can just go to the gym.”
For Lawrence, the past few years have been a lesson in relinquishing control—of perfection, of public perception, of the illusion of mastery. Motherhood, she has discovered, is not about knowing but enduring, surviving each uncertain moment with grace. And in that honesty, she offers something rare: not advice, not a manifesto, but a mirror of what motherhood can truly feel like.
