After growing up her whole life in a conservative household in Kentucky, Jennifer Lawrence made the switch to being a democrat all thanks to a joke she heard on 30 Rock.
The actress revealed in a new cover story for Vogue that she is still struggling to reconnect with her republican family following the election of Donald Trump and the birth of her first child, a son named Cy. During the conversation that took place a few days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Lawrence shared “with a haunted look in her eyes,” “I just worked so hard in the last five years to forgive my dad and my family and try to understand: It’s different. The information they are getting is different. Their life is different.” She also said she recently discussed with her therapist a recurring nightmare she’s been having about Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. “I’ve tried to get over it and I really can’t. I can’t,” she continued. “I’m sorry I’m just unleashing, but I can’t fuck with people who aren’t political anymore. You live in the United States of America. You have to be political. It’s too dire. Politics are killing people.”
Lawrence also said that putting woman’s access to abortion in jeopardy was bringing up a lot of the same emotions she felt after the 2016 election. She explained that while she was not entirely in support of Hillary Clinton, it still “breaks my heart because America had the choice between a woman and a dangerous, dangerous jar of mayonnaise. And they were like, Well, we can’t have a woman. Let’s go with the jar of mayonnaise.” She added, “I don’t want to disparage my family, but I know that a lot of people are in a similar position with their families. How could you raise a daughter from birth and believe that she doesn’t deserve equality? How?”
The Don’t Look Up star added that she’s able to understand to a certain extent where her family is coming from as she also considered herself a republican growing up. Although she admitted that she thought of it more as a cultural thing, like supporting a sports team, rather than political. But her thinking started to change around 16 years old when she watched an episode of 30 Rock in which Tina Fey‘s character Liz Lemon says something like, “I’m not a crazy liberal. I just think people should drive hybrid cars.” Lawrence said the line struck her as “rational,” and as she began to film movies in other countries, she noticed how the wealth never seemed to trickle down to the people who actually needed it, but would remain concentrated within the upper class. And not just in the United States, but all over the world. Lawrence explained that for her, being republican had always meant “Why should my taxes pay for your haughty lifestyle?” But after being exposed to these other cultures, it made her realize that there’s way more to the picture. She said, “Nobody likes to see half their paycheck go away, but it made sense to me. Yeah, for the greater good, I guess it makes sense.”