Jennifer Lawrence reveals the role she didn’t get: “The only time I’ve ever been truly devastated by losing an audition”
Before being catapulted to stardom, Lawrence missed out on a role she had coveted - and says the failure “really killed” her.
Shortly before Jennifer Lawrence appeared in her breakout big-screen role, director Tim Burton enjoyed a box-office hit with Alice in Wonderland - and Lawrence was “devastated” not to be in the movie.
Speaking on the Howard Stern Show in 2018, Lawrence recalled that she went up for the role of Alice in the Disney picture, but wasn’t chosen.
Her failure to land the part, she said, hurt more than any other unsuccessful audition in her career.
“That really killed me”
“[Alice in Wonderland is] the only time I’ve ever been truly devastated by losing an audition,” Lawrence told Stern.
“Most of the time, you’re like, ‘Ah, it wasn’t meant to be, move on, what can you do,’” the 34-year-old American said. But missing out on Burton’s film “really killed me”, she revealed.
Mia Wasikowska ended up playing Alice, in a movie that earned over $1 billion worldwide after its release in March 2010.
“[Wasikowska] was perfect and amazing,” Lawrence acknowledged, adding that she couldn’t have matched the quality of the British accent that the Australian adopted for the role.
JLaw rises to stardom after Alice snub
Three months after Alice in Wonderland came out, Lawrence appeared in Debra Granik’s critically acclaimed Winter’s Bone, delivering what has been described as an “incredible, starmaking” turn.
Lawrence’s performance earned her a Best Actress nomination at the 2011 Oscars.
Soon after Winter’s Bone, the Kentucky native was catapulted to even greater prominence when she was cast as Mystique in the X-Men superhero movie franchise, and as Katniss Everdeen in the smash-hit dystopian film series The Hunger Games.
An Oscar and a nine-figure fortune
In 2013, Lawrence then won Best Actress honors at the Oscars, for her performance alongside Bradley Cooper in David O. Russell’s comedy-drama Silver Linings Playbook.
An actor who has now featured in nearly 30 films, Lawrence has also picked up Oscar nods for her roles in 2014’s American Hustle and 2016’s Joy.
Hollywood’s highest-paid woman in 2015 and 2016, according to Forbes, she is reported to have accrued a $160 million fortune during her two-decade screen career.
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