Podcast Summary

The Daily: “The Interview” — Jennifer Lawrence Regrets Everything She’s Ever Said or Done

Date: November 1, 2025
Host: Lulu Garcia-Navarro (for The Interview, a New York Times podcast)
Guest: Jennifer Lawrence
Highlight: Jennifer Lawrence discusses her new film “Die My Love,” her evolving relationship with fame, motherhood, mental health, creativity, and politics.

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth, candid interview between Lulu Garcia-Navarro and Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence ahead of the release of “Die My Love.” The conversation explores Lawrence's complex experiences with motherhood (including postpartum depression), the pressures of celebrity culture, her creative process, the tension between public and private personas, and her shifting stance on political activism. The tone is reflective, humorous, and emotionally raw, with Lawrence offering vulnerability and self-awareness about past missteps and her current approach to fame and creativity.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin and Meaning of “Die My Love”

• Scorsese’s Book Club: Martin Scorsese recommended the source novel to Lawrence after reading it in his (mysteriously exclusive) book club.

• Personal Resonance: Lawrence read the book soon after her first child and was able to access darker emotions for the role due to being in a good place, emotionally.

• On Portraying Grace:

  “It's kind of like turning all the lights on and looking at the monster under the bed or something.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [03:29]

• Film as a Meditation on Motherhood & Rage:
  Lawrence describes the movie as poetic and open to interpretation — for her, it's about “losing her identity in motherhood and rage at not just her husband, but the change of the relationship, the change of love.”

  “There's like a statement and then breathing room for you to read into what the statement means to you.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [04:23]

2. Motherhood & Postpartum Depression

• Lawrence’s Own Experiences: She had two contrasting postpartum experiences; her first was positive, the second was marked by anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and eventually, postpartum depression.

• Use of Medication: She credits Zerzuve for helping with postpartum depression:

  “I went on a pill that was designed for postpartum. I took it for two weeks, and it helped a lot.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [08:37]

• On Maternal Guilt and Anxiety:

  “I just kind of, like, live in guilt and just, you know, is this the right breakfast?... I just kind of am always worried that I'm failing them.... I can do a reality check and be like, everybody's okay. You're just spinning. But she can't, and she doesn't. So she really just goes there.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [09:18]

3. Creativity, Sacrifice, and American Revolution Obsession

• Balancing Art and Motherhood:
  Lawrence describes the struggle and guilt over loving her creative work as much as her family:

  “It feels vain and selfish that I love being a creative person as much as I do... I would not be complete if I couldn't make movies.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [11:15]

• Reading the American Revolution:
  Immersed in history to cope with postpartum anxiety, Lawrence dove into Stacey Schiff’s The Revolutionary, hoping history might offer insight for today:

  “I feel like the closest thing we can get to a crystal ball is history.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [13:01]

4. Body Image, Nudity, and Letting Go of Vanity

• Comfort with Nudity:
  Pregnant during filming, she felt release from body image worries:

  “There's this freedom of vanity in a way, because I'm pregnant... I just had to let go of any vanity.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [13:55]

• Self-attack and Humor:

  “I do have moments where I'm like, what technically are the differences between me and a prostitute? But it doesn't keep me up at night. What? Well, I don't think that there's anything wrong with prostitution either.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [14:45]

5. Public Persona, Backlash, and Taking a Step Back

• Reflections on Fame:
  Lawrence is deeply ambivalent about her “too much” public persona in her early 20s:

  “I was young and nervous and defensive and awkward.... As horrified as I am at some things ... I'm just like, oh, my God, so cringe.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [16:24]

  She describes feeling inevitable backlash after two consecutive trips/falls at high-profile events and the media’s quickness to brand her as inauthentic:

  “Everybody just kind of thought that meant everything that I did was fake. And it was like, all a shtick. This is how it felt to me. And that I just kind of got, like, found out as this, like, fraud.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [17:43]

• Mutual Breakup With The Public:
  Both Lawrence and the public “needed a break” from each other, leading her to a two-and-a-half year hiatus.

  “It was a mutual breakup.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [18:14]

6. Evolving Attitudes: Caution & Growth

• More Reserved Now:

  “I've also grown up and I'm a lot more nervous about whatever I say publicly... It just would feel so inauthentic and not like what I'm here to do. So I'm trying to strike that balance.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [20:44]

7. Gendered Double Standards and the “Morality Police”

• Different Standards for Female Celebrities:

  “You watch not one male actor get asked that question. And I see that play out a lot of just like women being the examples, women being the morality police.... There's like an extra pocket for it. The ire that people are capable of, I think, is different.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [22:15]

8. Directors, Acting Process, and Emotional Hardiness

• On Working With Difficult Directors:
  She learned to stay “loose” and credits David O. Russell and Christian Bale for shaping her approach:

  “If he didn't like something, he was just like, that was terrible. Looked like shit. Do it better. And that was like a very helpful conversation.... I'm not sensitive about acting. Acting. I'm not competitive about acting.... I think it's cause I feel secure, so why would I get competitive?”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [26:50, 28:29]

• Humorous Self-awareness:

  “I'm more sensitive than Amy Adams. Just flat out, I guess I don't mean anything I say. Do you still wanna continue interviewing me?”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [28:17]

9. Political Engagement

• Regrets About Political Outspokenness:
  Lawrence reflects on her outspokenness during the first Trump administration:

  “I think ... celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for. And so then what am I doing? I'm just sharing my opinion on something that's going to just add fuel to a fire that's ripping the country apart.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [32:41]

  • She worries about polarizing audiences and now prefers to express her politics through film and documentaries rather than social media or public statements:

    "If I can't say something that's gonna speak to some kind of peace or lowering the temperature... I just don't wanna be a part of the problem. I don't wanna make the problem worse."
    — Jennifer Lawrence [33:39]

• Reflecting on Regret:

  “I regret everything I've ever done or said.”
  — Jennifer Lawrence [35:40]
  Said with characteristic humor, but also a thread of genuine anxiety and self-doubt.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On acting while pregnant: “I sucked in as hard as I possibly could have, but I wasn’t gonna diet. I was pregnant, I couldn’t exercise, I was working. So there’s just this kind of real freedom to it.” [13:55]
• On the insecurity of fame: “I was waiting for it because, like, it's not, you know, it's going to come down. That's just, like, the nature of things.” [16:24]
• On the difference between hers and other actors' emotional resilience: “Amy Adams said that she cried on set ... But I think it's cause I feel secure, so why would I get competitive?” [27:29, 28:29]
• On contemporary politics: “If I can't say something that's gonna speak to some kind of peace or lowering the temperature ... I just don't wanna be a part of the problem.” [33:39]
• On regret: “I regret everything I've ever done or said.” [35:40]

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:30 | Starting the interview: How the film came to Lawrence through Scorsese | | 04:09 | What “Die My Love” means about motherhood and identity | | 05:21 | On her character Grace’s mental health and Lawrence’s own pregnancy during filming | | 07:16 | Describing her own postpartum depression and treatment | | 09:18 | Anxiety, guilt as a mother, and reality checks | | 11:12 | Balancing creativity and motherhood, obsession with the American Revolution | | 13:55 | Discussing nudity, body image, and vanity | | 16:24 | Looking back at her young public persona and media backlash | | 18:14 | Why she took a step back from acting and the public eye | | 20:44 | On being more cautious and deliberate now in interviews | | 22:15 | Gendered double standards in the industry | | 26:19 | On working with difficult directors and her acting process | | 28:17 | Admits to being more sensitive than Amy Adams, with characteristic humor | | 32:41 | Change in political engagement/speaking out after Trump’s first term | | 35:40 | Admits tongue-in-cheek: “I regret everything I’ve ever done or said” |

Conclusion

This wide-ranging interview paints a vivid portrait of Jennifer Lawrence’s current mindset: more grounded, circumspect, and self-critical, yet retaining the irreverence and openness that made her a star. She shares raw insights on motherhood, mental health, the cost of fame, and the unique expectations placed on women in public roles. Lawrence’s candidness about her struggles and regrets—tempered with humor—make for a resonant and revealing episode.

Listen to the full interview for a deeply human portrait of an evolving Hollywood icon at a moment of both personal and cultural reckoning.