Ah, the Oscars. A night of celebration for the best films in a given year, sure, but many of us tune in year-after-year with the hopes of catching a memorable celebrity TV interaction or reaction during the event. One of the most memorable additions to the big night was Jennifer Lawrence back in 2013 when she fell on stage while walking up the steps in a massive ball gown while accepting her Silver Linings Playbook Best Actress award.
J-Law was the indisputable highlight of the award telecast that night, also between her viral confrontation with Jack Nicholson and her hilarious press conference afterward. 24 years old at the time, the actress played off all the attention beautifully in the moment, but now she admits it was a sore subject for some time. In her words:
I was ready, I was very nervous and also very superstitious. I didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility that I would win. I didn’t want to write down a speech. I had everything in my head. I was very, very nervous but I was ready. All of the adrenaline clears out and they call my name and I’m elated and I’m in shock… And then I fell, and it just erased everything from my mind. My full brain went blank. I can look back at it now that I’m a little older fondly, but for a very long time the fall thing was very sensitive.
As Jennifer Lawrence recently spoke about on the Absolutely Not Podcast, the actress was well prepared for the night, despite some humbleness about her chances to win the highly-coveted golden statue. However, with the moment she fell in front of much of the industry and the millions of viewers watching, she was completely thrown off. Now she can look back and laugh about it all, but she didn’t always feel that way about it.
The Hunger Games actress also got candid about one famous anchorman’s commentary on the incident. Here’s what she said:
Also, I’m sorry but Anderson Cooper, I saw him on CNN three days later saying, ‘Well she obviously faked the fall,’ and it was so devastating because it was this horrific humiliation to me. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a chance to give a speech like that again, so it didn’t feel good for me not to have a speech. I’ll tell you what, I saw him at a Christmas party and I let him know. My friend told me a vein was bulging out of my eyes. But, he apologized. I think we’re good friends now. On my end, we’re all good. What I led with was, ‘Have you ever tried to walk up stairs in a ball gown? So then how do you know.’ He apologized immediately and said he didn’t know and gave this wonderful apology. I was all fired up…he probably told everyone I was a psycho.
Good for her. Some people apparently thought the actress’ fall on stage was some sort of bit to add some flair to the show, but the moment was completely genuine. Anyone who can see the massive length of her dress can deduce that her risk of falling was pretty high. Mix walking in a dress with the nerves of going up on the Dolby Theatre stage, and there you have it, an award-winning fall. Check out the moment below for a refresher:
She kept it together beautifully, even though her brain was likely going through a pinball game of anxiety over the moment. The actress has a reputation of telling it like it is in her interviews and with red carpet appearances over the years, and now with seven years having passed since the event, it’s interesting to see what she thinks about it retrospectively.
After a couple years away from Hollywood following her goodbye to Mystique in the X-Men prequel films, Jennifer Lawrence has joined Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, a star-studded movie including Leo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, Himesh Patel, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Matthew Perry, Rob Morgan and Tomer Sisley, and is being written/directed by The Big Short’s Adam McKay.
It’ll still be some time before we see Jennifer Lawrence return to the big screen, so check out how and where to stream her movies in the meantime.
