It’s still a week away from release, but discussion about X-Men: Apocalypse is already looking toward the future of the franchise, and what’s in store for a series of films where internationally acclaimed actors put on goofy suits and wave their arms around to indicate something superpower-ish is happening. And star Jennifer Lawrence is weighing in with a definitive statement about her participation in the movies, in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly. Her three-film contract is up as of this latest installment, meaning she is done playing Mystique for good—unless she decides to come back for more.
“Fassbender and McAvoy and I were all talking,” Lawrence told the magazine. “Like, ‘Will you come back?’ ‘I dunno.’ ‘I’ll come back, if you come back.’ Fox should be terrified because the deal we made was like if one of us doesn’t come back, none of us are.” This seems to imply it’s entirely out of her hands, and that if Fassbender and McAvoy both sign on for another, Lawrence will be helplessly pulled, Star Trek transporter-style, back into the mutant universe.
Not that she has any real desire to go back. Regarding the full-body blue makeup job required to play Mystique, Lawrence says, “You go in and you realize you’re rock bottom and like this sucks and it could not suck more,” which sounds pretty accurate and also like the equivalent of contracting Zika. But what sucks more than blue body paint is consistency of opinion, it seems. “I would love to come back,” says Lawrence, charmingly contradicting her earlier statement. “I love the fans and I love the character. But then you realize how important your year is, like how important three months out of your year is. I don’t know. I shouldn’t be that honest.” See? She couldn’t love the movies or the fans any more, except for the possibility of doing literally anything else but that for three months out of the year. That, she loves even more.