Jennifer Lawrence Won ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ Role after Reenacting Encounter with a Spider

Jennifer Lawrence recently revealed that she won her role in Silver Linings Playbook after reenacting an encounter with a spider.

Director David O. Russell explains he was “fascinated” by The Hunger Games star as she acted out her confrontation with the creepy-crawly during her audition.

He says, “I asked her to cry and she made me cry. She cried, so she went to get a tissue in the bathroom. She went, ‘Ah! There’s a gigantic spider in the bathroom!’ She imitated how the spider went when she tried to attack (it). That fascinated me as much as anything else. She was unlike anybody I’d ever seen.”

The filmmaker took her audition tape to producer Harvey Weinstein to convince him Lawrence was right for the role.

He continues, “I went personally to his office in New York to show him the (audition). I didn’t trust him just looking at it casually himself… within 30 seconds of looking at her I heard him say, ‘Oh my God’. And I said, ‘Yeah, there you go’. And that was that.”

Lawrence went on to win a Best Actress Oscar for her role in the film and she teamed up with Russell again for last year’s American Hustle, which has earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.