After being flamed, Jennifer Lawrence walks back her comments on being the “first” female action movie star

December 9, 2022

Lionsgate/Murray Close

After catching fire online from thousands of movie fans, Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence has walked back comments she made about fronting action movies as a woman.

“I remember when I was doing Hunger Games, nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work — because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead,” Lawrence said to fellow Oscar winner Viola Davis as part of Variety‘s Actors on Actors series.

The internet didn’t let the comment slide, with movie fans refreshing Lawrence’s memory about Sigourney Weaver‘s Ellen Ripley in the Aliens movies, Linda Hamilton in the Terminator films, Milla Jovovich in the Resident Evil movies and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, among others.

“Jennifer Lawrence says there were no female action heroes before she did The Hunger Games so please take a moment to mourn for Sigourney Weaver who apparently never existed,” one comedy feed snarked, getting thousands of retweets.

Some actresses took it very personally, including Star Trek: The Next Generation veteran Denise Crosby, who tweeted, “Hey Jennifer Lawrence, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to thank the many boys/men who were allowed to completely identify with a strong female character long before you were even born. There are a couple of us…”

After the backlash, Lawrence told The Hollywood Reporter Thursday, “That’s certainly not what I meant to say at all. I know that I am not the only woman who has ever led an action film. What I meant to emphasize was how good it feels … But it was my blunder and it came out wrong. I had nerves talking to a living legend.”