Oscar winner Lawrence revealed during The Hollywood Reporter’s roundtable panel alongside Michelle Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Danielle Deadwyler, Emma Corrin, and Claire Foy that working with director Singer was a more clichéd “emotional” experience on set compared to female directors. “It did always just make us laugh about how we ended up with, ‘Women shouldn’t be in roles like this because we’re so emotional,’” Lawrence said. “I mean, I’ve worked with Bryan Singer. I’ve seen emotional men. I’ve seen the biggest hissy fits thrown on set.” Lawrence starred in three Singer “X-Men” films: “First Class,” “Days of Future Past,” and “Apocalypse.” Singer was accused in 2019 of assaulting underage boys on sets for decades. Singer called the report a “homophobic smear campaign” timed to the premiere of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and claimed that the allegations were “bogus lawsuits filed by a disreputable cast of individuals willing to lie for money or attention.”
Writer-producer Simon Kinberg took over the helm for “X-Men” installment “Dark Phoenix,” saying that it was “clear” Singer was not going to move forward with the franchise. “It was the actors that approached me about directing the next of the X-Men movies. Jennifer especially,” Kinberg said at the time. “Jen said she wouldn’t come back for another movie unless I directed it. So, I had a lot of support from them.” Now, as Lawrence stars in and produces Apple Original film “Causeway,” the multi-hyphenate called the female-led production “the calmest” set she’s ever been on. “It was making me laugh when we were talking about the hours and stuff because it was just so interesting to be on a female-led movie,” Lawrence said. “My producing partner and I were the lead producers. We had a female director [Lila Neugebauer]. The schedule made sense. There were no huge fights. If an actor had a personal thing and wanted to leave early, instead of going, ‘Oh! Well, we’d all love to leave early!’ we’d put our heads together and go, ‘OK. How can we figure this out?’ We disagreed, and we listened to each other. Sometimes I was wrong and would learn that I was wrong, and sometimes I was right. It was incredible to not be around toxic masculinity. To get a little break from it.” She added, “[Neugebauer’s] my third female director, and they are the calmest, best decision-makers I’ve ever worked with. I absolutely love working with female directors.” Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
