‘Silver Linings Playbook’ Producer Recalls Thinking Jennifer Lawrence Outshined Bradley Cooper

A decade after winning an Oscar, Jennifer Lawrence is still getting her flowers for her role in Silver Linings Playbook.

Bruce Cohen, a producer on the 2012 film, recalled the special moment on set when cast and crew realized the magnitude of the young star’s talent. On the Wednesday, November 29, episode of the “Hollywood Gold” podcast, Cohen, 62, recalled filming a scene where the two main characters, Tiffany and Pat, (played by Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, respectively), get into a heated argument.

“So Jen arrives, we’re doing that scene outside the house where they argue,” Cohen remembered. “At the end of the first take, [there was] this moment of realization on all of our parts that if anything she’s better than Bradley and better than [Robert De Niro]. What she did right out of the gate was so special and so exciting.”

After the take, Cohen said that Cooper, now 48, “had this look on his face [of] ‘holy shit.’” Cohen added that De Niro, now 80, was similarly impressed.

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Cohen also pointed to one of the film’s most memorable scenes as further proof of Lawrence’s obvious talent. The scene — which the producer called Lawrence’s “tour de force” moment — occurs when Tiffany gets into an argument with De Niro’s character, Pat Sr., and uses sports scores to prove her point.

“[Writer and director] David [O. Russell] comes up to me in the morning and he hands me pages, and I say, ‘What are these?’” Cohen recalled. “He said, ‘These are a new scene I’ve written because I’ve seen what Jen can do and I understand now what we’re dealing with, who we have here and what her talent is.’”

Cohen added: “That scene was not in the script. David wrote that scene over the first weekend after watching Jennifer Lawrence do her thing.”

Now 33, Lawrence was just 22 when she landed the role of young widow Tiffany in the dramedy, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards. Lawrence won the film its only Oscar, taking home the trophy for best actress in 2013. She was previously nominated in the same category for 2010’s Winter’s Bone and went on to receive nominations for her roles in 2013’s American Hustle and 2015’s Joy.

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Most recently, she surprised fans with her role in the rom-com No Hard Feelings, which hit theaters in June. In the film, Lawrence portrays Maddie, a woman who helps a pair of helicopter parents bring their introverted son out of his shell before he starts college.

“I had just had a baby, so I definitely wasn’t planning on working,” the actress told Good Morning America in June, explaining that she changed her mind after reading the script for No Hard Feelings. “It was just too funny. It was the funniest thing I had ever read.”

Lawrence welcomed son Cy with husband Cooke Maroney in February 2022.