Jennifer Lawrence on No Hard Feelings: ‘It really is hard to make a comedy where you’re not offending people’

Published

2 years ago

June 21, 2023

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Jennifer Lawrence became a household name after being cast as lead character Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games films.

She went on to become at one point the highest paid actress in the world, with an awards collection including an Oscar, BAFTA and multiple Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe trophies.

After focusing on dramas, Lawrence is now leading a comedy for the first time – and not a family friendly one.

In No Hard Feelings, she plays Maddie, a broke Uber driver who responds to an advert from two parents looking for a woman to date – and sleep with – their introverted teenage son.

While it’s rated a 15 in the UK, the film is an R in the US – which means anyone under the age of 17 would need to be accompanied by an adult to see it in the cinema – and is being billed as the return of R rated comedies to theatres.

Lawrence told Sky News she thinks the world needs comedy at the moment – and if audiences find some of the content offensive, then maybe that’s a good thing.

“I think it’s time for just a good old-fashioned laugh,” she said. “And it really is hard to make a comedy where you’re not offending people. Everybody in some sense will be offended by this film – you’re welcome.”

Lawrence’s co-star Andrew Barth Feldman – who plays Percy, the teenager Maddie is being paid to seduce – agrees.

“We need to be able to engage with being offended,” he said. “There was and is like a big overcorrect because we realised there were so many things that we were joking about that we shouldn’t be… and I think this movie does a really good job of continuing to push limits while still engaging with the conversation that the things that these people are doing are wrong, and not a good idea.”

“Something we learned from the old-time comedies is mean comedy is not really funny,” Lawrence added. “You know, making somebody feel bad about themselves – other than me making fun of me. But the way that we did it is fine, we figured it out.”

Lawrence had been looking for the chance to explore her funny side on screen for a while. “I was definitely always open to a comedy,” she said. “I wouldn’t say I was like: ‘I really want my character to try to have sex with a young person’, but I just read it and it was the funniest thing I’d ever read.”

No Hard Feelings was actually inspired by a real advert on US listings site Craigslist, which Lawrence and writer/director Gene Stupnitsky found themselves discussing over dinner one night.

“He showed me the Craigslist ad and we were just laughing about it,” she said. “Our whole dinner was just talking about the kind of people who would write the ad – and so that’s kind of in my mind where I thought he would go with the movie.”

But rather than the parents, the film focuses on Maddie and Percy – the teenage son of an overprotective mother and father, who seemingly has no interest in dating.

While Percy’s an extreme case, Barth Feldman found plenty to relate to in the character.

“My generation – and we see this so much with Percy – we’re the first generation that was born with iPhones in our hands,” he said. “And so there is just a sense of compulsion and fear and comparison that is so constant with us.

“[Percy] is stuck in this bubble – the world outside is all on his phone and his parents want to bubble-wrap him and he hates it, but it’s safe for him; but he needs to break out, he needs to learn that he can make his own decisions and truthfully, put the phone down for a little bit.”

No Hard Feelings isn’t the only film Lawrence has been promoting lately, having also appeared at the Cannes film festival in May for the documentary Bread And Roses, which she co-produced.

The film looks at the women living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and is something of a passion project for Lawrence.

“You watch it on the news and you know that it’s just going to eventually fade out of the news and I didn’t want these women’s lives to just be a quick story that everybody forgets about,” she said. “So I spoke to my producing partner about how to get cameras in a Taliban-run Afghanistan, and we found Sahra Mani, who is an Afghan filmmaker, and we told her this is what we want to do.

“Obviously it was extremely dangerous for her and for the three women that participated… and thanks to Sahra and these amazing women’s courage, we have this footage that hopefully will explain and put more light on women’s suffrage in Afghanistan, which is just unbelievable.”

No Hard Feelings is out in cinemas in the UK from Wednesday 21 June

Entertainment

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces sentencing – how much time is he expected to serve?

Published

4 hours ago

September 28, 2025

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Sean 'Diddy' Combs faces sentencing - how much time is he expected to serve?

Sean “Diddy” Combs is set to be sentenced over prostitution-related charges next week.

The hip-hop mogul has already served just over a year in prison after being arrested in New York in September 2023.

Following his high-profile trial earlier in 2025, he was found guilty of two counts of transportation for engagement in prostitution – but cleared of the more serious charges of sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

Combs, 55, was one of the most influential hip-hop producers of the 1990s and 2000s, the founder of Bad Boy Records and a Grammy-winning artist in his own right.

Now, he faces up to 20 years in jail – although his defence team is arguing for much less.

Here is everything you need to know ahead of his sentencing.

What is transportation to engage in prostitution?

During the trial, the court heard details of sexual encounters called “freak offs” by Combs – also referred to as “hotel nights” – which involved his girlfriends and male sex workers.

The rapper would “orchestrate” these encounters between the women and the sex workers, while he watched. Sometimes, these sessions would take place in different states across the US, as well as abroad, and Combs would pay for the sex workers and the women to travel.

He was found guilty of two charges – one relating to sex workers he paid for while in a relationship with singer and model Cassie Ventura, and another relating to sex workers who took part in sessions with Jane*, a woman he was later in a relationship with who was not identified during the trial.

The charges fall under America’s Mann Act, which prohibits interstate commerce related to prostitution.

What about the other charges?

Combs was found not guilty of two counts of sex-trafficking, relating to both Cassie and Jane, and one count of racketeering conspiracy.

This means while jurors believed Combs broke the law over using sex workers, they did not find the sexual encounters involving the women were non-consensual, which is what prosecutors had argued.

Both Cassie and Jane gave evidence, telling the court they felt manipulated and coerced, and sometimes blackmailed, into taking part in the freak offs during their relationships with the rapper. However, defence lawyers argued these were consensual encounters and part of a “swingers lifestyle”.

“The men chose to travel and engage in the activity voluntarily,” defence lawyers said in legal submissions after the verdict. “The verdict confirms the women were not vulnerable or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted during the freak offs or hotel nights.”

What is racketeering?

Racketeering broadly means engaging in an illegal scheme or enterprise, and the charge falls under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO) in the US. According to the US justice department’s definition of RICO statute, it is also illegal to “conspire to violate” the laws.

Prosecutors alleged Combs led a racketeering conspiracy “that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labour, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, among other crimes”. However, jurors also cleared him of this charge.

Had he been found guilty of the more serious charges, he could have faced life in prison.

Will Combs be jailed for 20 years?

Each charge of transportation to engage in prostitution carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, so in theory he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

However, it is thought his sentence will be less than this. Following the verdict, prosecutors said he should be sentenced to at least four to five years.

The music mogul has been denied bail several times since his arrest and again since the trial.

What do his lawyers say?

Following the trial verdict, both prosecutors and the defence team have made arguments to the judge about sentencing.

Most recently, Combs’s lawyers submitted a legal submission to the court calling for the rapper to be jailed for no more than 14 months – which after time already served would mean him walking free almost immediately.

Before this, they called for Combs to be acquitted or for a retrial on the prostitution-related charges. The US government “painted him as a monster”, they said, but argued his two-month trial showed the allegations were “not supported by credible evidence”.

The rapper’s lawyers have argued that, to their knowledge, he is “the only person” ever convicted of the Mann Act charges for the conduct he was accused of in court.

What has the judge said?

Judge Arun Subramanian, who presided over the trial, will decide Combs’s fate.

He has previously decided several times not to grant bail, saying the hip-hop mogul’s team have failed to show sufficient evidence he is not a flight risk and also citing admissions of previous violence made during the trial.

During her opening statement, Teny Geragos, who is on Combs’s defence team, described him as “a complicated man” and conceded he could be violent. However, she argued, this was not the charge against him.

Will Combs try to revive his career after ‘unspeakable shame’?

Despite being convicted of the prostitution-related charges, his lawyers hailed the verdict a “victory”, given he was cleared of the more serious allegations. In interviews since, they have said he is planning a return to music with a New York gig.

However, in legal submissions, they have also said the trial brought Combs “unspeakable shame and monumental adverse consequences” and that his “legacy has been destroyed”.

After allegations against him were made public, Combs was removed from the boards at three charter schools he created in Harlem, the Bronx and Connecticut and was also stripped of an honorary doctorate degree from Howard University, which plans to return his prior donations, they said.

He was also forced to return the key to the city of New York that was previously presented to him by the mayor, and his career has “collapsed”.

As well as this case, he is also still facing several civil lawsuits – and has “mounting legal bills” from defending these and the criminal charges, his lawyers have said.

Entertainment

Jimmy Kimmel’s show back on Sinclair and Nexstar thanks to viewer feedback

Published

1 day ago

September 27, 2025

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Jimmy Kimmel's show back on Sinclair and Nexstar thanks to viewer feedback

Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show will return to ABC affiliates belonging to Sinclair and Nexstar after the two major network operators took his programme off-air over his comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Kimmel was accused of being “offensive and insensitive” after using his programme, Jimmy Kimmel Live, to accuse Donald Trump and his allies of capitalising on the killing.

Disney-owned ABC suspended the show last week following threats of potential repercussions from the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission.

Sinclair, which controls 38 ABC affiliates from Seattle to Washington DC, called on Kimmel to apologise to Mr Kirk’s family over the comments and asked him to “make a meaningful personal donation” to Turning Point USA, the nonprofit that the conservative activist founded.

On Tuesday, Disney announced the return of the programme after backlash to its suspension, but both Sinclair and Nexstar, which own more than 20% of ABC affiliates, initially said they would not resume airing the show.

Kimmel criticised the ABC affiliates who preempted his show during his TV return, saying: “That’s not legal. That’s not American. It’s un-American.”

Three days later, the two major network operators announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live would return to their TV stations after the week-long boycott.

The move came after Sinclair received “thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers and community leaders”.

In its statement, the company pointed to its “responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honouring our obligations to air national network programming.”

Nexstar, which controls 28 ABC affiliates from Kansas to New Orleans, said in a similar statement that it was airing content that is “in the best interest of the communities we serve”.

Both companies said their decisions were not affected by influence from the Trump administration or anyone else.

The president had criticised the programme’s return on Tuesday, writing on Truth Social that he “can’t believe” ABC gave Kimmel his show back and hinted at further action.

“Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” Mr Trump wrote.

“He is yet another arm of the DNC (Democratic National Committee) and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this.”

During Kimmel’s first show since being taken off-air, the presenter said it was “never my intention to make light of” Mr Kirk’s death.

“I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” he said as he choked up.

“Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make”.

Speaking on Tuesday night’s show, Kimmel said he understood why the remarks “felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both”.

New episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live air Monday to Thursday, and Friday night’s rerun will be of Tuesday’s show, meaning viewers of Sinclair stations will be able to watch Kimmel’s emotional return to the air.

Entertainment

Prince of Wales says 2024 was ‘hardest year’ of his life

Published

1 day ago

September 27, 2025

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Prince of Wales says 2024 was 'hardest year' of his life

The Prince of Wales has told Schitt’s Creek star Eugene Levy that 2024 was the “hardest year” of his life.

The future king told the Hollywood star about last year, which saw his wife, the Princess of Wales, and his father, the King, both undergoing treatment for cancer.

The pair were catching up over a pint in a pub as part of Apple TV+ series The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy, which will air next month.

In the episode Living The Royal Life In The UK, William tells Levy: “I’d say 2024 was the hardest year I’ve ever had.

“Life is said to test us as well and being able to overcome that is what makes us who we are.”

The preview of the episode also saw Levy invited to “pop down” to Windsor Castle for a private tour by the prince.

Levy, 78, can be seen reading out an invitation saying: “I heard that your travels have brought you to the UK and I wondered if you might like to see Windsor Castle?

“If you’re free at 10 tomorrow, why don’t you pop down to the Castle for a private tour.

“Would be great to see you!”

After touring the castle, Levy asks William what he does when he is at home, and the prince laughs and replies: “Sleep. When you have three small children, sleep is an important part of my life.”

New episodes of The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy will premiere weekly until the finale on 31 October 2025.

The special episode with William will air on 3 October.