Jennifer Lawrence Says Doing a Sex Scene ‘With a Stranger Is Preferable’: ‘It’s Weirder’ With Co-Stars You Know

Jennifer Lawrence said during a live recording of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast (via People) that acting in sex scenes with strangers is “preferable” because things are way less awkward when you have to get intimate with a co-star who is not a friend. As an example, the Oscar winner compared stripping down with “Die My Love” co-star Robert Pattinson, whom she didn’t know before filming, to kissing “Hunger Games” co-star Josh Hutcherson in the later films after the two were already close friends.

Lawrence and Pattinson filmed a nude scene together on the first day of shooting “Die My Love,” Lynne Ramsay’s psychodrama about a new mother fighting through psychosis.

“It was actually easier that way because Rob and I did not know each other, which is kind of better, you know?,” Lawrence said  “Like in ‘Hunger Games,’ me and Josh Hutcherson would have to kiss and that’s like… Imagine it. You know, it’s weirder and so yeah, doing it with a stranger is preferable.”

While “Die My Love” employed an intimacy coordinator to work with Lawrence and Pattinson on their sex and nude scenes, Lawrence revealed last year that the duo didn’t really need one on set.

“We did not have [an intimacy coordinator], or maybe we did but we didn’t really… I felt really safe with Rob,” Lawrence said on the “Las Culturistas” podcast. “He is not pervy and very in love with [partner] Suki Waterhouse. We mostly were just talking about our kids and relationships. There was never any weird like, ‘Does he think I like him?’ If there was a little bit of that I would probably have an intimacy coordinator. A lot of male actors get offended if you don’t want to fuck them, and then the punishment starts. He was not like that.”

Lawrence said in a separate interview that she allowed herself to be naked on camera without giving any thought to how she might look. This was a change of pace from when she went full frontal in the R-rated comedy “No Hard Feelings” and exercised hard before filming.

“I don’t care about nudity. I’m not sensitive about it,” Lawrence said. “I wanted Lynne to have total freedom artistically… I think being pregnant took a lot of, like, vanity anxiety away. Before ‘No Hard Feelings,’ I was dieting and not eating carbs and working out. I was pregnant [for ‘Die My Love’]. Like, what was I gonna do? Not eat? I was working 15 hours a day. I was just tired… I remember, like, them sending over a close-up of cellulite and being like, ‘Do you want us to touch this up?’ And I was like, ‘No. That’s an ass.’”