An actress who refuses to be pigeonholed. The most challenging role of her career, and her best performance, by far. An unbreakable woman. These are lines from just a few of the reviews that describe Jennifer Lawrence’s kickass turn as a feisty Russian spy in Red Sparrow, that’s currently playing in theatres in Calcutta. A chat with JLaw on being Dominika in the Francis Lawrence-directed film. 

Ballet moves, Russian accents, fight scenes… it seems like Dominika was one of those roles that required a lot of preparation... 

It took a lot of training. I did three hours of ballet every day for about four months. Which really was mostly learning how to move my body differently, because obviously I wasn’t going to become a great ballerina! And I worked on the accent a lot with Tim Monich, who’s an absolute genius with dialect.
 
How did you prepare for this mentally? Because Dominika really goes through the mill…

The torment and the humiliation that these Sparrows (spies trained at a Russian intelligence service) have to go through... for the young people who are forced into this programme, it’s harrowing and daunting, and for me to do those scenes was the same. It took a certain amount of mental strength and preparation to get myself to a place to really feel empowered enough to do it. But overall, at the end of the programme, even though she’s been trained to use her body, she really uses her mind to survive.

How was it working with the likes of Charlotte Rampling and Jeremy Irons?

Jeremy Irons and Charlotte Rampling are icons. It’s really just a mind-blowing experience being on set with actors of that calibre. Charlotte Rampling showed up first day, nailed the accent, while I was just freaking out about mine! Doing scenes with Charlotte and Jeremy was an unforgettable experience. 

There are a number of sexual and violent scenes in the movie. How did you ensure these scenes weren’t exploitative?

Well, this movie is about exploitation, and international espionage. And so it was really important to us to push the envelope. There are going to be a lot of scenes in this movie that some people may not be comfortable with. But it was important for us to really tell the story, and go all the way, and push it as far as we could to get to the real heart of the entire story. 
 
You mentioned earlier that even though Dominika is recruited to use her body, she succeeds by using her mind. We learn that she’s actually mentally very strong, don’t we?

This is a woman who has been a survivor from the time she was a child. From the time she was born, her body belonged to the state, even when she was dancing. So, she has always used tact, mental tact, to get to where she is in the world. And to survive, when her circumstances in the movie change, she goes to Sparrow School to be trained in the art of manipulation, and artful cunning. But she’s already a very smart survivor. She looks at life kind of like a chess game and she’s always four moves ahead of everybody.
 
Would it be fair to say that the ballerina training in a way prepares her for her spy training?

Yeah, the ballerina training is what makes her a perfect spy. That’s why the training, gruelling as it was for me, was really important — to really study how these dancers push their bodies past the brink of being comfortable, and have to keep going. That is exactly what happens to Dominika when she starts becoming a trained spy... there is no stopping point. There is no ‘I’m uncomfortable, let’s stop now’ and there isn’t in dancing, either.

The relationships in the film are complicated, aren’t they?

The entire book that Jason Matthews wrote is filled with characters who are complex. Everybody in this movie, and every character, Russian or American, is there for a myriad of different reasons — for their country, for loyalty, for ambition.

Which makes the relationship between Dominika and Nate, played by Joel Edgerton, hard to read..

Yes, because the relationship between Dominika and Nate is fuelled with passion and chemistry but also deception. They’re both experts at manipulating others and both are wary of being deceived, so it’s practically impossible to know what they’re really thinking. 

Another strange relationship is the one between Dominika and her uncle Vanya, played by Matthias Schoenaerts... 

Yeah!
 
What’s going on between those two?

Well, Dominika’s mother (Nina, played by Joely Richardson), since Dominika was a child, has tried to protect her from her Uncle Vanya, who has had an inappropriate attraction to her. And he became a part of the SVR [Russian Foreign Intelligence] and then became an untrustworthy, dangerous person. So there’s a very scary dynamic between the two of them. Because at the end of the day, it is her uncle, it is her family and Dominika doesn’t have a father. She lost her father so there is that want to have a relationship. But that gets overwhelmed by her need to get ahead. 

Red Sparrow is not what we might expect from a normal spy movie. Would that be fair to say?

It’s a psychological spy drama. It’s exciting. It’s dark. And unique. It was also written by somebody who worked extensively with the CIA, and specifically with Russian-US relations. So it’s really pulling back the curtain on a lot of factors that go into espionage that I personally never knew about. That being said, it’s still a fictional story, with fictional characters, but having the whole story written by, somebody who worked for the CIA offers a unique perspective.
 
Obviously Russia’s in the news these days, particularly in the US. That makes the film seem quite prescient. Was that brought up in conversations when you were making this film?

Relations between Russia and the US have been the inspiration for story writers and filmmakers for decades. The intrigue and the glamour make it fascinating, which is why it has fuelled so many stories and films. The film is based on a book from a CIA agent which makes it even more exciting — his real-life experiences give the story authenticity. I loved playing the role of Dominika... she is so complicated and ultimately empowers herself despite the manipulation on both sides.
 
Is Dominika a character you’d be interested in playing again?

I would love to! I find her fascinating — I’ve been frequently asked, ‘Would you ever do another franchise again?’  and I’ve always said to grow with a character over years is one of the most interesting things as an actor that you can do, and I don’t feel like I’m done yet with Dominika. There’s so much more to explore. So, yes... I would love to play Dominika again!