Jennifer Lawrence felt 'empowered' to do Red Sparrow nude scene after photo hack

Jennifer Lawrence has said that the hacking of explicit photos of her back in 2014 left her feeling ’empowered’ to film a nude scene in her new movie Red Sparrow.

Lawrence plays a Russian ballerina turned spy in the sexually charged thriller.

“I feel like something that was taken from me, I got back, and am using in my art,” she told Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes.

“It’s my body and it’s my art and it’s my choice. And if you don’t like boobs, you should not go see Red Sparrow.”

She added: “The fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me.

“I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside.”

In the aftermath of the hack, which also saw pictures of Kate Upton and Mary Elizabeth Winstead stolen from their iCloud accounts and disseminated online, the Hunger Games actress called the intrusion ‘a sex crime’.

Lawrence recently broached controversy surrounding a photo call for the movie, in which she posed wearing a plunging dress, while he co-stars like Joel Edgerton and Jeremy Irons stood next to her wrapped up in winter jackets.

In a furious post on Facebook, she wrote: “Wow. I don’t really know where to get started on this ‘Jennifer Lawrence wearing a revealing dress in the cold’ controversy. This is not only utterly ridiculous, I am extremely offended.

“That Versace dress was fabulous, you think I’m going to cover that gorgeous dress up with a coat and a scarf? I was outside for 5 minutes. I would have stood in the snow for that dress because I love fashion and that was my choice.

“This is sexist, this is ridiculous, this is not feminism. Over- reacting about everything someone says or does, creating controversy over silly innocuous things such as what I choose to wear or not wear, is not moving us forward.

“It’s creating silly distractions from real issues. Get a grip people. Everything you see me wear is my choice. And if I want to be cold THATS MY CHOICE TOO!”

Speaking exclusively to Yahoo UK, Joel Edgerton also weighed in on the furore.

“It was a really weird situation because if it was real life I would give you my jacket but right now I feel like I would just be upsetting some designer somewhere,” he said. “They gave her a dress to wear, a dress they wouldn’t want covered in a coat.”

“I did see [the Twitter backlash], it was pretty funny but look, I don’t know if it’s double standards. It’s weird because on the one hand if you criticise her for looking that way than you are also criticising the whole volume of…the whole history of the way women are expected to look. It’s sort of a lose-lose situation.”

Lawrence also talked about the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal in the 60 Minutes interview, reiterating that while he never subjected her to unwanted advances, she is united in her condemnation of his alleged actions.

“What he did is criminal and deplorable. And when it came out and I heard about it, I wanted to kill him. The way that he destroyed so many women’s lives. I want to see him in jail,” she said.

Red Sparrow is out across the UK on March 1.

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