Jennifer Lawrence is heading back to set. A year after announcing a break from acting, the Oscar winner has signed on to star in an untitled film for IAC FILMS and A24. Theater director Lila Neugebauer will be making her feature directorial debut with the project. Variety confirmed the news.
While plot details are being kept under wraps, we know that first-time screenwriter Elizabeth Sanders penned the script, and that Lawrence and Justine Polsky are among the project’s producers. Principal photography is slated to kick off in June in New Orleans.
Lawrence won an Oscar in 2013 for “Silver Linings Playbook.” She’s also received nods for “Joy,” “American Hustle,” and “Winter’s Bone.” The #TimesUp supporter most recently starred in 2018 spy thriller “Red Sparrow.” She’ll be seen next in “X-Men” pic “Dark Phoenix,” set to bow June 7.
Neugebauer made her Broadway debut last year with a well-received revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s “The Waverly Gallery,” starring Elaine May. Her other theater credits include the world premieres of Sarah DeLappe’s “The Wolves,” “The Mad Ones,” and “Mr. Murray’s Menagerie,” and Annie Baker’s “The Antipodes.”
Asked when she got her first taste of directing, Neugebauer told Elle, “Well, I had grown up seeing plays in New York and had been exposed to theater, and I credit my mother for a lot of that. But in terms of my experience, I went to this idiosyncratic public high school in New York called Hunter, which is a windowless converted armory on the Upper East Side. We called it the brick prison. What was remarkable about it was that the theater was student-directed and student-produced, and every year, they had an evening of student-written plays. I acted for the first time in seventh grade in a 20-minute musical called ‘7 Minutes in Heaven,’ by someone you’ve probably heard of, Lin-Manuel Miranda.”
As for whether it’s harder for female playwrights to get recognition for their work, Neugebauer said, “We’re living life in the patriarchy! It’s the structure in which we all live, and it includes certain challenges for women. Would I say that it’s harder for women? I don’t know if that’s how I would articulate it, to be candid. That’s a question that requires its own three-hour breakout session.”
