Jennifer Lawrence had high words of praise for her friend Amy Schumer, and her mettle in facing personal attacks for her activism.
‘Amy’s choice to use her voice to speak for justice puts her under immense fire,’ the Academy Award-winning actress, 33, told Variety as part of a profile on Schumer, 42.
Lawrence continued: ‘I wouldn’t say she navigates it so much as she throws her middle fingers up and walks away from negative comments like a gas station fire in a Michael Bay movie.’
Schumer told Variety about an instance in March in which she was verbally abused, months after stating her support for Israel following Hamas’ October 7 attack on a music festival, triggering the ongoing heightened conflict in the Middle East.
Schumer said she was in Brooklyn near the subway, working on an upcoming film titled Kinda Pregnant, when a passerby yelled at her, ‘F*** you, Amy Schumer! You’re a Zionist! You love genocide!’
The Trainwreck actress, who has past turned off her social media comments amid vitriolic remarks, said that she’s gotten used to it at this point.
‘It didn’t even raise my heart rate,’ Schumer said of the incident on the set. ‘I didn’t cry. Nothing.’
Schumer said that she ‘can’t help’ herself in making remarks that could generate controversy and a backlash against her.
‘A lot of people can help it, but I’ve never been able to,’ she told the outlet. ‘But I also want to be helpful. Do you know what I mean?’
In the chat with Variety, Schumer said she found inconsistencies with the public’s perception of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
‘The focus is so razor-sharp on Jewish people but not on Hamas,’ she said. ‘It’s very strange.
‘So I’d recommend people read a book – Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby. Or anything – Jewish people wrote everything down.’
Schumer, who appears in the upcoming Jerry Seinfeld-directed Netflix film Unfrosted, spoke about the ongoing social conflict stemming from the Israel-Hamas conflict.
‘It’s gotten to this place, where you can’t speak up for other Jews without people feeling like it’s a slight to the conditions in Gaza,’ Schumer said.
Schumer said her support for Israel was not to be confused with support for their government leaders.
‘I don’t agree with anything that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is doing, and neither do the Israelis I know,’ Schumer said. ‘Of course what’s going on in Gaza is sickening, horrifying and unthinkable. And, I don’t think it’s OK to hate anyone because they were born Jewish.’
In the interview, Schumer also said that a long-running comedy project she had with Lawrence, in which they would play siblings, was unlikely to come to fruition.
‘I don’t think it will ever happen,’ she said. ‘It was just, like, life kept going. My family was going through a rough time. I don’t want to say any more than that.’
She added, ‘The way we’re hoping our careers go, we might do something with more grit and teeth.’
Lawrence told Variety she felt the moment had passed for the aforementioned project: ‘Now that we’re older, a sister comedy might not resonate as much. But we have every intention of working together.’