Jennifer Lawrence on Die My Love: “I found the ferocity and the wildness so exciting”
Jennifer Lawrence stars in Lynne Ramsay’s first film in eight years: as a woman grappling with the emotional strain of early parenthood. She tells us about the influence of Cassavetes, her own experience of motherhood, and collaborating with Robert Pattinson.
Given their scarcity and consistently high calibre, a new Lynne Ramsay film is always cause for celebration. Die My Love is just Ramsay’s fifth feature since her debut Ratcatcher (1999) and the first since You Were Never Really Here (2017).
The film began its journey to the screen in the summer of 2020 when Martin Scorsese sent a copy of Argentine author Ariana Harwicz’s novel to Jennifer Lawrence’s production company Excellent Cadaver. Scorsese had read the book and imagined a film version with Lawrence playing Grace, the troubled new mother at the story’s centre. “It was obviously a huge honour,” Lawrence says, “and really exciting.”
Isolated in a small Montana town where partner and soon-to-be husband Jackson (Robert Pattinson) grew up, Grace is far away from her old home in New York City. With Jackson frequently on the road for work and a new baby often her only company, her behaviour becomes erratic. Whether sad and contemplative, unhinged and aggressive or just amorous in the face of an increasingly indifferent Jackson, Lawrence’s performance offers a complete spectrum of moods and actions from silence to violence, in an indelible take on one woman’s postnatal depression.
Having briefly spoken to Lawrence in the green room at Die My Love’s UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, we caught up again the next day in a central London hotel where the Oscar-winner’s red-carpet gown was exchanged for a black leather jacket and soft hotel slippers.
What was your reaction to the novel when you read it?
Jennifer Lawrence: [It reminded me of] A Woman Under the Influence [1974]. That was a huge influence on my life and career. Any actress would say a role like that is the dream of a lifetime. I found the character, the ferocity and the wildness of her [Grace] so exciting. But it was confusing how to crack it, because the book is all the character’s inner world; it’s poetry. Once that part clicked [I realised] “Oh, this is not literal, this is an expression.”
What in the book made you think, “This could make a really good film?”
The character was so unbridled and so frank. She wasn’t performative. She was experiencing something very raw, had no veneer and no desire to be fake or false. It was [also] Lynne Ramsay. She’s a poet.
Grace is wild, funny and bitter – there’s so much going on. How did you build the character and find the key to playing her?
It’s an everyday, moment-to-moment thing, and a lot of it has to do with what the other actor is giving. The wardrobe helped a lot. When they first arrive, you can see how new to town they are. They stick out and then, as the film progresses, she starts to blend in with the town. So knowing what my costume was helped me figure out where she was mentally.
When we spoke last night you mentioned how becoming a mother played a part in it.
Yeah. There’s nothing like it. There’s nothing like having a child and your whole life changing. With my first child, I had a really pleasant postpartum. Of course you have the awareness that, “Oh, wow, my entire life is different, and every single minute of my life is different.” But I connected with my baby, and I had a really nice time. Because of that I was able to read the book and go into a deeper place. I wasn’t trying to avoid anything, but the awareness that you have and the depth of emotions that happen after you meet that thing. You didn’t know how much you could love. You didn’t know how much you could fear.
Coming back to Lynne Ramsay. I don’t think she’s capable of making a bad film.
No, she’s not.
What is it about her work with you that brings out the best in you?
She’s so instinctual. She’s not afraid to observe; she doesn’t really have an ego. Some directors don’t even really let you get into a flow because they just want to be a part of it so much. She’s the opposite. She’s so happy to sit and watch for a minute, but then slowly she’ll start building up this energy and this vibe, and she’ll start kind of putting it together subtly.
Speaking of collaborators, how did you work with Robert Pattinson to get this clear chemistry that’s between Grace and Jackson in the film?
It was great because we were both in really similar places in our lives. We both had new kids. I mean, his baby was a baby, baby, baby, and we both are really lucky with our partners. So I think because we had the contrast to work with, like, “This would be the expectation [of how a person should behave]” – what happens if the person does the opposite of that? [This] was really helpful for exploring. To have two actors that are in that similar place in their lives, and to be able to flip that upside down.
Die My Love is in cinemas from 7 November 2025.