Jennifer Lawrence Will Star In Sissy Spacek’s Directorial Debut ‘Sweet Tea’

Catherine Scott at Indiewire.com - The Playlist: Jennifer Lawrence is a busy girl. She busted out last year with an Oscar nomination for “Winter’s Bone,” and we’ll see her soon as Raven aka Mystique in “X-Men: First Class,” along with a handful of smaller roles in projects like “The Beaver” and “Like Crazy.” Oh yeah, and she was just cast in the huge tentpole adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ “Hunger Games” trilogy. We were worried for a second that she’d ventured off into mainstream Hollywoodland, but our fears have abated as EW report that she’ll take the lead in Sissy Spacek‘s directorial debut “Sweet Tea.”

Spacek’s film was only announced a few weeks ago and is based on the novel “Goodbye to the Buttermilk Sky.” Penned by “Get Low” scribe C. Gaby Mitchell (which Spacek co-starred in), the project looks to be shaping up, as Lawrence provides new details about her newest role. For us, it’s a welcome reprieve from all the “Hunger Games” talk, and Lawrence seems to provide intel that suggests Spacek will be straying from short-story structure of the book.

“It’s a drama but it’s kind of a down south love story drama,” Lawrence said. “About a mother who gets married young and meets another man and starts thinking that maybe she made a mistake.” Lawrence gave some insight into her new career post-Oscar, saying, “If ‘Hunger Games’ goes well, I can just do the things that I really want. If the scripts are not what I absolutely love, I don’t have to do them. I can just rest. So that’s what I keep saying to scripts. It’s good but not better than sleep.”

She won’t be getting much sleep now, as she told EW that she’ll head to set for “Sweet Tea” only a week or two after finishing the first installment of “Hunger Games.” Her enthusiasm for the script clearly outweighed any desire to cash in on her presumably large check. “Right after [finishing ‘Hunger Games’]!” she said. “I was like damnnnnnn. When I read the script and I loved it I was like ‘Ohhhhh!’ Because I knew it was going to have to be directly after and I’m just going to be exhausted but I can’t help it. I love it.”

Lawrence also had only nice things to say about Sissy Spacek: “Sissy is nice, normal, just a mom…and a great director too.” While we’ll wait to see how good Spacek is behind the camera, we’re excited about Lawrence’s casting. As long as she can balance her newfound action star career with her indie acting chops, everything will be peachy. We also assume the production and art direction will be outstanding if Spacek taps her husband, the great Jack Fisk known for his work with Terrence Malick and David Lynch.