Motherhood has been a journey for Jennifer Lawrence, and she’s being honest about it. On Dec. 7, the “Causeway” star spoke to fellow actor Viola Davis for Variety‘s “Actors on Actors” series, where the two bonded over their shared experiences as parents. After discussing her emotional film, which premiered on Sept. 10, Lawrence delved into her decision to start a family, noting that she was “so scared that I would f*ck it up.”
“Every day of being a mom, I feel awful. I feel guilty,” she told Davis. “I’m playing with [my son] and I’m like, ‘Is this what he wants to be doing? Should we be outside? We’re outside. What if he’s cold? What if he’s going to get sick? Should we be inside? Is this enough? Is this developing your brain enough?'”
In the spirit of relating, Davis recalled a story of when she accidentally locked her 12-year-old daughter Genesis in her car. “I had 50 million things on my plate,” Davis said. “My daughter was in the back. She’s happy and I’m just so stressed out going to Target . . . I walk out of the car, shut the door, and realize I don’t have my keys. I threw myself on the concrete, Jennifer. I screamed. You would think I was in a Greek tragedy.”
She continued, “‘My baby! Jesus!’ And then I saw these two men. I grabbed their necks and said, ‘My baby is in the car! My baby!’ And then what do I have in my hand? My phone. So the two men whose necks I’ve grabbed, they said, ‘Ma’am, you just have to call 911.’ And I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ So I called 911, and I proceeded to scream at the operator. Every expletive you can imagine came out of my mouth. They took her out of the car. And the reason why I’m telling you this story is it literally was seconds.”
Lawrence then revealed that she once drove around with her son with his seat unbuckled. “He was just teetering around, just flying. OK, great! Good to know that we all almost killed our kids,” she said jokingly.
Back in April, People confirmed that Lawrence welcomed her son Cy with husband Cooke Maroney, their first child together, whose name she revealed in Vogue’s October cover story. According to the actor, her son is named after postwar American painter Cy Twombly, one of Maroney’s — who’s also an art-gallery director — favorite artists.