Editor’s note: This article contains minor spoilers for the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up.
Since debuting on Netflix on 24th December, Don’t Look Up has become one of the most talked-about titles of this weird limbo period between Christmas and New Year (which is a great time for TV, tbh).
Written and directed by Adam McKay, who previously made The Big Short and Vice, it’s a satirical sci-fi film about two astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) who discover a giant comet hurtling towards earth. Understandably terrified, they embark on a very messy tour media to warn the human race that literally all of us are in danger. You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, and you’ll probably get Ariana Grande’s original song with Kid Cudi, “Just Look Up!”, stuck in your head.
During her press tour for the movie, Lawrence opened up about the part of Don’t Look Up she found especially difficult to film. It’s the opening scene where her character, astronomy PhD student Kate Dibiasky, spots the comet while eating toast at her desk and rapping a few bars of Wu-Tang Clan’s “Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit.”
“Because something happened with COVID, that ended up being my very first scene [to shoot],” Lawrence recalled at a press conference attended by Decider. “It was horrifying, because I’m in this huge hanger, and it’s so quiet. And I don’t know anybody, and I had to rap Wu-Tang Clan. It was just horrendous. And then what’s [used] in the movie is like, five seconds. I really wish I had known that.”
Lawrence said that memorising the Wu-Tang Clan track took her “a couple of weeks” and described filming this scene as “the worst day of my life”. When director McKay chimed in to congratulate her on doing a good job, Lawrence replied: “Hey, I knew my assignment. I did know every word, I still do.”
Don’t Look Up , which also stars Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet and Rob Morgan, is streaming on Netflix now. Jennifer Lawrence’s Wu-Tang Clan moment happens right at the start.
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