Jennifer Lawrence on Being the ‘Poster Child’ for Postpartum Depression
The four-time Oscar nominee says it’s a privilege to talk about these things.
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Jennifer Lawrence, 35, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter for its annual actress roundtable, where she talked about motherhood and what it’s like to promote a film about the postpartum experience... postpartum.
In Die My Love, Lawrence stars as a harried mother dealing with postpartum depression, rage, boredom, and psychosis. When asked by The Hollywood Reporter if she feels an obligation to be “the poster child of the postpartum experience” in the promotion of the movie, Lawrence spoke honestly.
“Not to sound stupid, but it is a privilege to talk about something that, 10 years ago, we weren’t talking about,” she said.
The actress, who shares two sons, Cy, born in 2022, and one born in 2025, with husband Cooke Maroney, went on to express how her personal struggles with postpartum affected her experience making the movie.
A pregnant Jennifer Lawrence poses with co-star Leonardo DiCaprio at the premiere of their movie 'Don't Look Up' in 2021.
Michael Ostuni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image
“I had really bad postpartum with my second—whom I was actually pregnant with while we were making this [movie]—so I had to watch cuts of it while I was suffering from postpartum."
The actress first mentioned her own personal experience in an interview with The New Yorker in October. She recounted how, with her first son, she didn’t really suffer from postpartum symptoms, only to find that things changed with her second.
Lawrence worried every time he cried that it was because he “didn’t like his life, or me, or his family,” and that she “was doing everything wrong, and that I would ruin my children.”
The actor turned to ChatGPT for advice and also went on Zurzuvae, the first FDA-approved oral medication for postpartum depression, which she found very helpful.
Postpartum depression is estimated to affect as many as 13% of new mothers in the U.S. and is a more severe form of the “baby blues” that affects up to 75% of new mothers.
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson play a couple in 'Die My Love'
MUBI
In a lighter section of the interview, Lawrence joked with Wicked: For Good star Cynthia Erivo about body makeup and the resulting scheduling limitations while painted up. Lawrence played Mystique in the X-Men movies from 2011 to 2019.
“Well, at least you’re green no matter what,” she told the British actress. “Sometimes I’d be blue, sometimes I’d be blond. They’d say, ‘We’re going to try to shoot something else,’ and it’s like, ‘OK, just give me eight hours.’”