When I first spoke with the artist Philippe Parreno, I wasn’t quite sure how things would go. I had long admired Parreno’s work—and, as it turned out, so had Jennifer Lawrence. We wanted to collaborate with him, but how would the immersive, site-specific pieces for which he is known translate to a magazine? And how would Lawrence, one of the most recognizable celebrities in the world, become a part of his creative universe, which typically blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction?
Thankfully, Parreno immediately accepted our invitation, and knew exactly what he wanted to do: a short film, from which we would take stills for the printed page. Several of his previous video projects have explored the challenges of capturing inner selves through portraiture, a concern shared throughout history by artists as diverse as Diego Velázquez and Andy Warhol. Parreno’s Marilyn, from 2012, conjured the ghost of Marilyn Monroe in a New York hotel suite: A robot re-created Monroe’s handwriting, and a computer faithfully reproduced her voice. In Zidane, a 21st Century Portrait, created in collaboration with Douglas Gordon, 17 synchronized cameras—including some with military-grade zooms that could amplify an image 300 times—tracked the French soccer star Zinédine Zidane from every conceivable angle during a match in 2005.
Is every portrait a form of torture? Is every true portrait, in the end, a portrait of sadness? In a viral age of collapse and uncertainty, Jennifer agrees to make a portrait—a portrait of an actor acting. The only rule: She must lie half the time.
100 Questions/50 Lies is a film with a single performer. What begins as an act of collaboration between actor and artist gradually turns unstable, even hostile—a dialogue that slips from admiration to suspicion, from empathy to unease. A struggle for survival and control.
It is a kind of “theater of self-staging,” where identity is never a mirror but an endlessly replayed performance. A portrait that reveals nothing, except the impossibility of remaining fixed—the vertigo of being caught in one’s own roles, a portrait that freezes none, but exposes the restlessness of self-representation.
Parreno had asked Lawrence to silently register on her face a wide range of emotions, one immediately after another, triggered by specific thoughts or words—and the result was breathtaking. In about a minute, second by second, Lawrence proved why she is one of the biggest stars in the world, conveying inner turmoil, peace, anxiety, happiness, and sadness with minuscule movements. “Looking at her is like looking at a landscape when the sun comes out from the clouds, then the clouds come back, and so on,” said Parreno. “Her face changes as emotions go through her, and it can be joyous or frightening.… But it’s always quite beautiful.”
Hair by Cyndia Harvey at Art Partner; makeup by Lucia Pica at Art Partner; manicure by Ama Cauvas at Artlist. Sound design: Nicolas Becker; special projects director: Martine d’Anglejan-Chatillon; production: AP Studio, Inc.; executive producer: Marie Godeau; producer: Leeloo Turmeau; production manager: Charlotte Thizeau; first assistant camera: Vincent Toubel; second assistant camera: Alejandro Asensio; camera intern: Ulysse G. Castel; gaffer: Thierry Baucheron; spark: Jerôme Robin; key grip: Vincent Blasco; postproduction: Jenny Montgomery at Company 3; assistant editors: Amaïlia Border, Nadhir Bouslama, fashion assistant: Brice Costa; production coordinator: Gabrielle Lussier; unit manager: Jack Sciacca; production assistants: Alphonse Emery, Robinson Guillermet; hair assistant: Ronke Olaibi; makeup assistant: Vladimir Gueye; sound operator: Ondine Novarese; sound operator assistant: Lou Jullien; tailor: Alice Chastel.
