Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) crawls through tall grass, sometimes holding a butcher knife, in "Die My Love."
Robert Pattinson says it's "horrendous" playing someone with "no redeeming features," and he wanted to help humanize Jackson.

NEW YORK − Most actors would think twice before barreling through a glass door.

But for Jennifer Lawrence, that was just another Tuesday making "Die My Love" (in theaters Nov. 7), playing a mercurial new mom named Grace who’s grown disillusioned with her quiet, rural existence. Desperate to feel anything again, she smashes her head into a mirror, mutilates shelves and wallpaper, and crashes a car while taunting her inattentive partner, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), with a condom.

It’s a fearless, feral performance that puts the four-time Oscar nominee back in awards contention, after winning best actress for 2012’s “Silver Linings Playbook.”

“Everybody's like, ‘Oh, my God, it must be so hard!’ “ Lawrence says, seated with Pattinson in a plush Midtown hotel. “The reality is, it’s actually really fun because none of the consequences in the script are real to my life. I get to call up that energy and adrenaline, and then they call ‘cut’ and I just get a high. I get to live those intrusive thoughts out loud.”

'Die My Love' is a feverish look at postpartum depression

Based on Ariana Harwicz’s 2017 novel, “Die My Love” viscerally portrays Grace's pummeling spiral into postpartum depression and isolation. Lawrence, 35, first read the book at the suggestion of Martin Scorsese (a producer on the project), and was instantly reminded of John Cassavetes' equally stressful "A Woman Under the Influence."

"The way it built this psychological experience, it's almost like you could see inside the heart and mind of Gena Rowlands," who starred in the 1974 film, she says.

Grace's cries for help are largely ignored by Jackson, whose waning interest in sex and frequent travels make her suspect that he's cheating. She, too, begins to lust after a mysterious motorcyclist (LaKeith Stanfield) who lingers around their property. Pattinson, 39, appreciated the efforts of director and co-writer Lynne Ramsay to better understand Jackson, who's ill-equipped to help Grace with what she's going through.

“In the book, he's more of a device for her; he’s really like a shadow person," Pattinson says. "But the more I was reading, I was like, ‘You can be a bad person for someone else without necessarily being a bad person.’ ”

“Die My Love” is this season's latest Oscar hopeful that tackles the physical and mental strain of motherhood, and the fear of losing one’s sense of self. “One Battle After Another,” “The Testament of Ann Lee,” “Hamnet” and “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” explore similar terrain, which Lawrence doesn’t believe is entirely coincidental.

“It probably has something to do with (the fact that) postpartum is finally spoken about in our culture,” Lawrence says, noting how public awareness has only grown over the last couple of decades. “Now that we know to medicate for it and ask about it, then it makes sense that it would seep into the artistic conversations.”

Lawrence has a 3-year-old son, Cy, with art gallerist husband Cooke Maroney, and they welcomed their second child earlier this year. Pattinson, meanwhile, has an 18-month-old daughter with his partner, singer/actress Suki Waterhouse. Those experiences fed into their performances, particularly in how Grace and Jackson interact with their young son. While the characters are depicted as neglectful parents in Harwciz's novel, Lawrence wanted to show that they care deeply for their child.

“The misunderstanding about postpartum is that you don't connect with your kid and you don't like your kid,” Lawrence says. Instead, “what often happens is both parents love the child so much that you end up resenting each other because the child is the only perfect thing in the relationship. It’s such an intense thing to disagree on.

“I mean, before we had kids, what would we disagree with our partners about? Where to go to dinner and who said what during an argument?” she adds. “When you disagree about what's best for your child, that's a real serious, scary fight.”

Jennifer Lawrence had a funny way to sabotage Robert Pattinson during filming

Lawrence and Pattinson's easygoing rapport is on full display the morning after Halloween as she recounts trick-or-treating with Cy, who insisted on dressing like a traffic light but tired of it after 10 minutes. ("I was like, 'I only spent months working on your costume, but yeah, let's go!' " Lawrence jokes.)

She teases Pattinson about his habit of cold-calling over FaceTime ("He thinks he's Gen Z"), and recalls "sabotaging" him with "the church giggles" before filming heavy, emotional scenes.

"It's very strange to see how you work," Pattinson says good-naturedly, describing how she immediately locks in as soon as cameras start rolling. "I was always very impressed with how you can just turn it on. Your ability to come up with stuff on the fly is insane."

"Die My Love" was made late last summer in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Although the movie itself may feel like a "pressure cooker," the "Batman" star has only happy memories of filming during the week and flying home to Los Angeles on weekends to be with Waterhouse and their daughter.

"The baby's like this funny little potato; she was so young at the time," Pattinson recalls, smiling. "It was a very, very lovely period. And just being in the countryside, looking at beautiful sunrises all the time ‒ it was very idyllic."

Jennifer Lawrence's husband and son Cy played on her character's 'affair motorcycle'

Lawrence was pregnant with her second child during filming, and Maroney and Cy stayed with her throughout production. She never had anxiety about taking Grace's bad energy home with her.

“I snap in and out of it on set,” Lawrence says. “Cy just got used to me having blood on my face, and he loved to sit on LaKeith's motorcycle. My husband and my son would be playing with the motorcycle, and that was the ‘affair motorcycle' (laughs).

"My family is just like, 'Cheers!' and 'Cheese!' and playing on it. I always thought that was so funny."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jennifer Lawrence reveals funniest moment with her son, 3, on 'Die My Love' set

Reporting by Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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