Jennifer Lawrence Would Do Anything but Be Mystique Again

At a time when veteran superhero actors are coming back, you have to wonder what alums are open to a return. Don’t expect Jennifer Lawrence as X-Men’s Mystique to be among them. In a pair of recent interviews, Lawrence looked back on the shapeshifting role she first took up with 2011’s X-Men: First Class. To Allure magazine, she said that while she loved getting to do stunts and reuniting with Renee Moneymaker (her stunt double on the Hunger Games movies). But the paint? Not so much. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, she recalled her First Class prep as “all body paint and blue, eight hours every time and ticklish. Imagine two tiny, cold, compressing air brushes all over your body. I am a hero. No one will understand what I went through.” No one except her predecessor, Rebecca Romijn, whose own process could take up to 15 hours to complete between the makeup and 110 prosthetics needed to achieve her scaly blue look, and which meant she wasn’t able to interact with the cast between shoots. Romijn’s back as Mystique for Avengers: Doomsday, joined by old costars James Marsden, Ian McKellan, and the late Patrick Stewart. (At time of writing, Romijn hasn’t said how long the process has been for the 2020s, but hopefully significantly shorter!) When asked by Allure if there was any chance she’d return to the scales, Lawrence’s candid response was “never say never, but absolutely fucking not.” Probably not too surprising, given how much the sequels worked to make her not blue, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Those feeling Lawrence-stalgia can see her as Katniss again in Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping on November 20, and she’ll also headline Zach Cregger’s The Flood. [via Variety] Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books that should be on your radar.