It’s been 13 years since Jennifer Lawrence famously fell up some stairs in a voluminous ballgown at the Oscars. I can still remember the moment it happened, and so do many other people. It was awkward. It was cringy. The actress thinks it looked fake. Yet, Ms. Lawrence herself would be the first to tell you that was not even her most embarrassing Oscars moment. Actually, it wasn’t even the most awkward thing that happened that year.
In fact, she admitted as much during an appearance on The Tonight Show. She even noted at the time a lot of people bring up the stairs thing, but that sort of thing is occasionally going to happen if you’re trying to look fashionable in high heels. What did mortify her?
My most embarrassing moment was during the Silver Linings Playbook year. It was like awards season and some of those parties [have alcohol]. And I was in a corner like drinking champagne and an older woman approached me, and was being really, really nice, really complimentary. And in my head I just went, ‘This is Elizabeth Taylor.’
You may already see where this is going. Silver Linings Playbook came out in 2012, and Lawrence was at the Oscars in 2013 in support of the movie, which is both when the stairs incident and this conversation occurred. Elizabeth Taylor died in 2011 at age 79.
… who was dead at the time. Who is still dead. I didn’t know that. So, the whole time she was talking to me, I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is Elizabeth Taylor!’ She is complimenting me, and I’m like, ‘Me? No you! Your movies that I can’t name. And your fashion moments that I don’t know!’ I was like, ‘You’re unbelievable.’
At that moment, one of Lawrence’s pals walked by and informed her she was not, in fact, speaking with Elizabeth Taylor. The actress’ reaction was to just extricate herself from the conversation immediately and run and hide out behind a wall. Thankfully, she didn’t trip this time.
It was certainly an instance where Lawrence put her foot in her mouth, and this isn’t the only time she’s had an awkward interaction in a public setting. That’s sort of part of the charm of her personality. She’s exactly who she is at any given moment, and she can sometimes be a lot. She knows it. She once even took a break from Hollywood because she felt like people were sick of her.
She came back in high demand, however, and appeared in Die My Love this year, with a cameo coming in Hunger Games prequel Sunrise on the Reaping, a role greenlighted in Martin Scorsese’s What Happens at Night, and another gig in Luca Guadignino’s Burial Rites, among others, coming up.
