In the upcoming comedy “No Hard Feelings,” Jennifer Lawrence plays a down-on-her-luck Uber driver who accepts a job trying to seduce a 19-year-old whose helicopter parents don’t want him heading off to college as a virgin. The task of playing the Oscar winner’s male lead in a raunchy R-rated comedy fell to Andrew Barth Feldman, best known until now for his stint on Broadway in “Dear Evan Hanson.” Feldman was already a student at Harvard University when the offer to join Lawrence in “No Hard Feelings” was made.
“I mean, when Andrew left his audition, the door closed and we all looked at each other and we were like, ‘That’s our — that’s Percy,”” Lawrence recently told Entertainment Tonight. “Then they were like there’s one complication, he’s supposed to go to Harvard, and we were like, ‘Is that a joke?’ He was fully the character, so I called him and said, ‘Andrew, I have really bad news you’re not gonna be able to finish your semester at Harvard.’ He’s gonna have to defer, or whatever college school words are.”
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Feldman opened up more about the “No Hard Feelings” audition process. Despite impressing Lawrence and the team in his audition, the young actor still had to go through a chemistry read as they finalized an actor to play Percy.
“One of the last things I did was a chemistry read with her,” Feldman said. “It was down to me and two other guys. And I was like, ‘I’m going to have to look Jennifer Lawrence in the eyes today and say, “Let’s fuck.”‘ That’s something that I have to do.”
However Feldman said it obviously paid off. It was Lawrence who personally called him to offer the role.
“She said, ‘Andrew, I’m so sorry, you’re not going to be able to go back to Harvard this semester,’” Feldman said. He was already at Harvard for semester, so he put his college life on pause to go to Hollywood and shoot with Lawrence.
“No Hard Feelings” is directed by Lawrence’s longtime friend Gene Stupnitsky. The duo revealed in May the movie is based on a real-life Craigslist ad.
“I read it, and I thought, ‘This is wild. Who is the woman that answers this ad?’” Stupnitsky told EW. “And I thought, ‘Oh, that’ll be a great role for my friend Jennifer Lawrence.’”
“Gene read the Craigslist ad to me, and I died laughing,” Lawrence added. “I thought it was hilarious, but there wasn’t a script or anything. I just thought he had a funny idea. And then a couple years later, he handed me the funniest script I’ve ever read in my life.”
“No Hard Feelings” opens in theaters on June 23 from Sony.
