Jennifer Lawrence Says New Movie Will Offend Everyone, Then Rips 'Mean' Comedies

Actress Jennifer Lawrence says it's high time people got back to laughing

The Oscar-winning actress has a new comedy coming out this week called No Hard Feelings. It's caught a lot of attention for a variety of reasons. It's being marketed as a raunchy comedy from a major studio (a rarity these days), it's being released theatrically, and then of course there has already been word that it contains a fight scene with full-frontal nudity.

“I think it’s time for a good old-fashioned laugh and it really is hard to make a comedy where you’re not offending people,” Lawrence said during an interview with Sky News, per Variety. “Everybody in some sense will be offended by this film — you’re welcome.”

In the movie, Lawrence plays an Uber driver facing bankruptcy who tries to seduce an awkward 19-year-old at his parents' request in exchange for a car.

You know, the kind of thing Shakespeare used to write about.

“We need to be able to engage with being offended," her co-star Andrew Barth Feldman chimed in. "There was and is like a big overcorrect because we realized there were so many things that we were joking about that we shouldn’t be."

I was with you for the first part of that sentence; you lost me in the second half.

You can joke about anything. Anything at all. It's a matter of how you approach it and how good the joke is.

Still, Lawrence joined Feldman saying that they learned from "old-time comedies" that were "mean."

Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Feldman at the premiere of No Hard Feelings. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/WireImage)

Lawrence Decried "Old-Time Comedies"

Despite saying people need a "good old-fashioned laugh" Lawrence said "old-time comedies" are too mean and not the place to find those laughs.

“Something we learned from the old-time comedies is mean comedy is not really funny... making somebody feel bad about themselves – other than me making fun of me," she said. "But the way that we did it is fine, we figured it out.”

You don't want to make people feel bad about themselves... you mean like offending them?

She didn't clarify what she meant by "old-time." Did she mean Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges, or Caddyshack and Mel Brooks' entire catalog? There's a bit of a difference. Either way, the only thing those movies will teach you is how to write great comedy.

They're all products of their time when sensibilities were different. If people can't understand that and get over it that's their problem,

Also, let's not act like mean comedy can't be funny. Celebrity roasts are always "mean" and they're funny (or they used to be, it's been a while though).

It sounds like we might be moving back in the right direction. However, people are still overly cautious about offending, even if that means the comedy will suffer.

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