As the saying in sports goes, “Act like you’ve been there before.”
While it refers more to not over-celebrating when you score a touchdown, I couldn’t help but think of Jennifer Lawrence’s ridiculous acceptance speech when she stepped up to the mic to receive the Golden Globe for the Best Supporting Actress for her role in “American Hustle.”
The Kentucky native avoided tripping on her way up to the stage (as she did at last year’s Oscars), but once there, she did manage to collapse in a heap of breathless, insincere incredulity while accepting the accolade.
Her voice shook and raced as she warbled, “I don’t know why I am so scared,” like she had just been rescued from a cruel, lengthy captivity, and was not cradling one of the great honors of her industry.
The 23-year-old went from the belle of last year’s award balls to simply a bell constantly ringing in my ear.
She acted like she had never been there before, when we all know she probably has all of the bathroom attendants’ names memorized by now.
Had she somehow had a “Freaky Friday” body-swapping incident with Anne Hathaway, whose precious and skeletal presence promoting her tiny role in “Les Miserables” was enough to create a booming industry devoted to hating her?
Unfortunately for Lawrence (and us), her “golly gee” performance was the sequel to last year’s Academy Awards.
That was her first win (for “Silver Linings Playbook”), so her shallow breathing and race to spit out thank-you’s (complete with that trip on the stairs) was endearing and humanizing.
With the Oscar nominations announced Thursday, Lawrence garnered another Best Supporting Actress nod and became the youngest three-time nominee in history.
So here are some handy hints for the talented, once-charming actress — yes, you, JLaw.
Give up the cutesy, doe-eyed ingénue show. It’s wearing thin for us savvy watchers, who are well aware that you’re in on the industry’s secret handshake.
Don’t abandon your bold wit. During last year’s Golden Globes, you sauntered on stage like a veteran collector of hardware, grabbed the statue and quipped, “I beat Meryl [Streep],” and followed up with a zinger aimed at studio honcho Harvey Weinstein: “Thank you for killing whoever you had to kill to get me up here today.”
It was refreshing and confident and showed real pluck and personality.
And please don’t start acting self-important.
Last year, your favorite topic in interviews was urination — on the red carpet, in your pants, in the water. Earthy, yes, but funny.
Compare that with November’s preachy, humorless ripping of E! “Fashion Police.”
“There are shows like the ‘Fashion Police’ that are just showing these generations of young people to judge people based on all the wrong values and that it’s OK to point at people and call them ugly or fat,” she griped during a Q&A with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.
Joan Rivers fired back that Lawrence had “tripped over her own arrogance,” tweeting: “It’s funny how Jennifer Lawrence loved @E_FashionPolice during Awards Season when we were complementing her every single week. . . . But now that she has a movie to promote, suddenly we’re picking on all those poor, helpless actors.”
We hope to see more of the old you at the Oscars. Please don’t tell us the cool chick was you acting this whole time.