Jennifer Lawrence Shares How the Tough Parts of Motherhood Help Her With Acting

Jennifer Lawrence got candid about the emotional impact motherhood had on her while promoting “Die My Love” at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 18.

When asked how being a parent of young children made her relate to her character Grace, who has postpartum depression, Lawrence answered, “Obviously, as a mother, it was really hard to kind of separate what I would do as opposed to what she would do, and it was just heartbreaking.”

“When I first read the book …. I had just had my firstborn, and there’s not really anything like postpartum. It’s extremely isolating, which is so interesting,” Lawrence reflected.

She said of her character, “She doesn’t have a community. She doesn’t have her people. But the truth is, extreme anxiety and extreme depression is isolating, no matter where you are. You feel like an alien. it deeply moved me.”

Lawrence later said in the press conference, “Having children changes everything. It changes your whole life. It’s brutal and incredible.”

The “Silver Linings Playbook” star added, “I mean, I didn’t know that I could feel so much and my job has a lot to do with emotion. It’s almost like feeling a blister or something, like, so sensitive. So they’ve changed my life, obviously, for the best and they’ve changed me creatively. I highly recommend having kids if you want to be an actor.”

Lawrence Has Been Candid About Motherhood

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Lawrence officially became a mom of two in March after welcoming her baby with her husband Cooke Maroney, People reported. The two also share their son Cy, who was born in February 2022.

In a September 2022 interview with Vogue, Lawrence shared, “It’s so scary to talk about motherhood. Only because it’s so different for everybody.”

She mused,”If I say, ‘It was amazing from the start,’ some people will think, ‘It wasn’t amazing for me at first,’ and feel bad. Fortunately I have so many girlfriends who were honest. Who were like, ‘It’s scary. You might not connect right away. You might not fall in love right away. So I felt so prepared to be forgiving.'”

“I remember walking with one of my best friends at, like, nine months, and being like, ‘Everyone keeps saying that I will love my baby more than my cat’. But that’s not true. Maybe I’ll love him as much as my cat,” Lawrence added.

The “Don’t Look Up” star gushed, “My heart has stretched to a capacity that I didn’t know about.”