Multi-awarded actress Jennifer Lawrence is prepping up to make her directorial debut with dark comedy ‘Project Delirium.’ Aside from being one of Hollywood’s top actresses, the 25-year-old star has opened up in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that she intends to join the likes of Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck and other stars who have already taken on directorial duties.
“I have wanted to direct as long as I’ve wanted to act. I just don’t talk about it because I’d rather just do it,” Lawrence said.
The Oscar-winning actress immediately rose to fame after taking on lead roles in action film franchises ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘X-Men’ as well as playing it up with different genres, such as in black comedy crime drama movie ‘American Hustle’ and romantic drama movie ‘Silver Linings Playbook.’
“I’ve wanted to direct since I was 16 and always thought I should start making steps towards that. If I had tried to do it earlier, I wouldn’t have been ready. Now I actually feel ready,” she added.
The story for the upcoming ‘Project Delirium’ is based on real events, and is drawn out from Raffi Khatchadourian’s ‘Operation Delirium,’ which sheds light on the chemical warfare experiments carried out by Colonel James S. Ketchum at the Edgewood military facility in Maryland during the 1960’s.
Ketchum conducted tests among over 5,000 volunteer soldiers in the United States who have harmful “incapacitating agents”, such as LSD and marijuana. His main goal was to discover a new means of neutralizing enemies without the need to kill them, although he did not check in on majority of his test subjects in the following years for long-term mental damage brought on by his experiments.
Lawrence is currently filming with Chris Pratt for Sony’s ‘Passengers,’ a sci-fi space drama film directed by Morten Tyldum who also worked on ‘The Imitation Game.’
‘Passengers’ draws attention to the story of a male passenger, Jim Preston (Pratt), who goes on a spacecraft that is set to travel to a distant planet. He then wakes up from a ‘cyrogenic sleep’ 90 years earlier than the others onboard. Surrounded by thousands of other passengers, Pratt’s character rouses a female passenger, Aurora (Lawrence), from her sleep, hence the beginning of their romantic story.
In addition, Lawrence will return as Mystique in next summer’s ‘X-Men: Apocalypse.’ She previously mentioned, however, that she is set to exit the Marvel franchise after the release of the upcoming ‘X-Men’ film next year.
Nevertheless, in an interview with Yahoo Movies during the San Diego Comic-Con along with ‘Apocalypse’ co-stars earlier this year, Lawrence stated that she might possibly consider a return to the franchise depending on the circumstances.
“It might not make a lot of sense to a lot of people, but I feel like I’ll know when they [Fox] ask. If I get a pit in my stomach and feel like I’m going to throw up, I’ll say no. And if I don’t, I’ll ask how much they want to pay me,” she explained.
'X-Men: Apocalypse' is set for an official release on May 27, 2016.
