Celia Walden is hungry. That much is clear. When you’re the high profile trophy wife of one of the planet’s most famous and infamous media personalities, it must be hell to try and find time to indulge in a guilt-free pig out session.
So no wonder that, in her recent interview with hot actress of the moment Jennifer Lawrence, all she can talk about is how Lawrence eats. Bacon. The Ranch Breakfast. ‘Eating like a trucker’. The fact that she suggests to Walden that they split a plate of blueberry pancakes (how I wish I was in the room when that happened.) The fact that the 21-year-old Oscar nominee (the second youngest nominee in history), current X-person (X-lady) personification of Mystique and current beau of Skins bad boy Nicholas Hoult (fingers crossed for X-babies) is far more interesting to Glamour’s readership of everyone from 15 year old girls to 45 year old women because she’s eating breakfast. At breakfast time. And it’s NOT YOGHURT.
Hell, I love my bacon. I’m hungry just reading the piece, and not least because I’ve got a raging crush on Lawrence; the American answer to Gemma Arterton with her Bambi eyes, incredible curves and soft yet serious voice. But it’s this voice that has been chosen to challenge Lawrence (in an interview much in the style of the ones her character will be pitched into when Lawrence’s Twilight movie moment, The Hunger Games, is released next week), not Glamour’s usual interview technique of flippy, skippy, jippy and girlie. Instead, it’s a battle of wills between a hardened professional and a girl who has no doubt had a lot of media training.
In the blue corner, there’s Walden. Literally the blue corner – the daughter of a former Tory MP who has made a name for herself bitching about celebrities in a gossip column for the Telegraph, and more recently bitching about how much she hated cyclists in the week one was hit by a lorry in central London. She has also written for the Daily Mail. Clearly, she’s a media-savvy woman, and her neatly probing yet objective writing style was perfect for the tricky subject of Lawrence – poised to be the next Kristen Stewart but with smiles, giggles and undeniable talents. Ahem.
And Walden employs this undermining tactic to great effect – she candidly gets Lawrence to open up about kissing scenes with fellow actors while fully aware that she is dating one such former on-screen flame. And when mentioning Lawrence’s choice of the Ranch Breakfast over being skinny (later insisting that she had to eat properly and build muscle for the role of the ass-kicking, sharp-shooting Katniss in The Hunger Games because ‘Kate Moss running at you with a bow and arrow isn’t scary) she snidely observes ‘clearly, this girl has a lot to learn about the fame game’.
Naturally I spat out my granola at this. Sure, Walden is a smart, shrewd navigator of the murky media waters, largely helped by her water-snake of a husband. But come on, luv. You’re snidely suggesting that a 21-year-old girl with a vigorous fitness routine, a body to die for, a proper appetite and a modelling contract is in the wrong, and Rachel Zoe and her anorexic co are in the right?
But it’s not just Walden that’s suggesting this. Glamour have taken what I’d like to christen ‘the Adele route’ with Lawrence’s cover and photoshoot. The subscribers’ cover features Lawrence looking an absolute babe in a bejewelled Prada bodysuit, but the plebs’ cover is a headshot. Or more specifically, half headshot, half shot of some ridiculously expensive frilly t-shirt by Valentino. Then inside, we have two full-length shots of Lawrence (one of her whimsically running on a beach, because you’re not a real Glamour cover girl until you’ve run along a beach/through a park in an evening gown) and the rest are close-ups of her neck, face, hair and some presumably expensive jumper. Somewhere, at some point, Walden has cornered the picture editor in the bathrooms at Vogue House and twisted her ear.
And with this viewpoint comes another worry: as Lawrence’s star rises, like Arterton’s did, how long will it be before the inevitable sly digs, such as the infamous ‘Have you been eating all the spies, Gemma?’ headline from the Mail during the Bond promo circuit, kick in for Jennifer? When will she become famous enough to be a justifiable target, and when will Walden’s prophetic advisory words in the article ring true?
The interview left a deeply unpleasant taste in my mouth. Instead of a lasting impression of how genuinely down-to-earth, sweet, smart and normal Jennifer Lawrence is, I now wonder if, as Walden suggests, there’s something wrong with that.
But, given that Lawrence regularly appears on Hottest Women in the World lists, I know where I’m placing my money.
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i bought this issue (only £2 and i needed/wanted the tube of expensive brand of hair mask) and it said we should draw freckles on ourselves.
i bought it from co-op just for the freebie too.. and it had a different cover, i despise the “celebrities are JUST like us!” slant that magazines think is really avant guarde.