Jennifer Lawrence is known for her hilarious relatability as well as her incredible acting talent. The characters that this actress portrays often have scenes of them singing, but is it Lawrence’s voice that we’re actually hearing?
Jennifer Lawrence can sing, but that doesn’t mean that she likes it. Lawrence hates singing in front of other people, no matter how many times she has to do it because of a role.
Read more below to find out about Lawrence’s distaste for singing, which roles she’s had to sing for, and how she’s reacted to the experiences.
The Unwilling Singer
In many interviews, Jennifer Lawrence has talked about how much she hates to sing in front of other people. “Singing in front of people is my biggest fear in the entire world,” she said on an episode of Conan.
For someone who hates singing as much as she does, she certainly has to sing a lot. In fact, right after saying that, her Hunger Games co-star Josh Hutcherson easily persuaded her into singing Cher’s “Believe” with him on television, Entertainment Tonight tweeted.
As much as she insists she hates singing, saying that her voice is reminiscent of a “tone-deaf Amy Winehouse” in an interview with David Letterman, fans have said just how much they love her voice in tweets like this one, which reads, “I kinda want to go see Mockingjay again just so I can see Jennifer Lawrence sing The Hanging Tree.”
It was after the song “The Hanging Tree” that Lawrence became very clear about her distaste for singing. “I do not like singing in front of other people,” she told Letterman. “It’s like my biggest fear. I cried on set that day… that was awful.”
She also talked about where the fear stemmed from with Letterman, beginning with her mother who had told her she can do anything, even sing. “But I can’t,” Lawrence told the audience. “I sang in front of the school because I was like, ‘I can do that, I can do anything.’”
The song she sang was “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” belted out at maximum volume. “My dad laughed for like the entire week, I would hear him around the house… imitating me,” she said.
Check out the YouTube video below to watch Jennifer Lawrence’s interview with David Letterman, in which she talks about how much she dislikes singing and does her rendition of the famous Christmas song.
Singing Roles
Lawrence has not been able to escape singing roles in most of her movies. In the first Hunger Games movie, she sang Rue’s lullaby, “Deep in the Meadow,” and T Bone Burnett, one of the film’s composers, said, “It was beautiful. She did great. She’s singing great.”
When she guest-starred on Medium, she sang “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” while filming American Hustle she sang “Live and Let Die,” and for the movie Joy, she had a duet to Frank Sinatra’s “Something Stupid,” but it is “The Hanging Tree,” which she sang for Mockingjay, that has really captured the public’s attention.
“I have this theory that directors hate me. I hate it, and I have to keep doing it. It’s the weirdest thing. I’ve never once put it out there that I think I can sing or that I even enjoy singing,” she said.
The director of the Hunger Games films, Francis Lawrence, also talked about her singing. “She’ll probably never really understand it because she’s so sensitive about the singing, but she did it and she did it all day… and she hated me for making her do it all day… but she did, and it’s great.”
While she hates it, it’s easy to see why directors love her singing, especially for the Hunger Games films. When she’s not belting out Cher or Christmas music, her voice is beautiful and haunting, and her slight rasp is perfect for “The Hanging Tree.”