SPOILER alert: This story contains descriptions of specific scenes in “No Hard Feelings,” in theaters now.
In “No Hard Feelings,” Jennifer Lawrence plays a 32-year-old Uber driver in the Hamptons whose car has been repossessed because she failed to pay her property taxes. She ends up answering a Craigslist ad posted by a wealthy couple (Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick), offering a car in return for a woman to date their socially awkward 19-year-old son (Andrew Barth Feldman) to prepare him for college life.
The movie is a raunchy R-rated comedy that sees Lawrence’s character, Maddie, fully naked on a beach.
“Everyone in my life and my team is doing the right thing and going, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?’” Lawrence said while promoting the film alongside Feldman. “I didn’t even have a second thought. It was hilarious to me.”
The sequence – which I won’t spoil by describing in detail – took about a day to shoot following “a lot of rehearsal,” Lawrence said.
It is just one of many awkward, sexually-charged moments in the film. “Every situation that these characters end up in, you’re laughing your butt off,” said Feldman, most known for his work in Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen.” “We became so close instantly that nothing ever felt weird or unsafe. It was entirely professional.”
Without missing a beat, Lawrence turned to Feldman and asked, “Even when I put my T-shirt over your head and motor-boated you? You felt safe?”
Feldman deadpanned, “I felt it was an exclusively sterile and professional environment.”
Feldman explained that the comedic chemistry with Lawrence was immediate. “On Day One, we were telling each other our deepest darkest secrets and it only got deeper from there,” he said.
Writer-director Gene Stupnitsky may have written Maddie with Lawrence in mind, but the Oscar-winning actor doesn’t think they share many similarities. “I think I have better judgement than Maddie,” Lawrence said.
