She's the Oscar-winning actress who burst onto the scene with Winter's Bone and went on to star in the phenomenally popular Hunger Games movies. He's a former child actor who starred alongside Hugh Grant in About a Boy, then grew up and appeared in films as diverse as Warm Bodies and Mad Max: Fury Road. We're talking, of course, about Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult.
These two very talented, likable actors found their lives tied together, both personally and professionally. They starred in the recent series of X-Men pictures -- X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse. They also fell in love and started dating.
Celebrity couples are nothing new. We live in an era where the likes of "Bennifer" and "Kimye" become pop culture obsessions. Fans love knowing that their favorite stars are enjoying romances, and some even live vicariously through these unions. The entertainment media covers such love affairs obsessively.
Lawrence and Hoult had some real ups and downs. They got together, broke up, got back together, and broke up again. Lots of interesting things happened during the five years that they were an item. We're about to break that down for you with this look at one of the most admired power couples of recent times.
Here are 15 Secrets About Jennifer Lawrence And Nicholas Hoult's Relationship.
They met during an X-Men screen test
The story of how Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult met and became a couple is about as Hollywood as you can get. Most people assume that they met while filming X-Men: First Class. The truth is that they actually met a little bit before that.
It turns out that the two were first introduced during a screen test for the movie, somewhere around 2010. Lawrence, of course, was set to play the blue-hued Mystique, a role originally portrayed by Rebecca Romijn in the earlier X-Men movies. Hoult was also set to be turned blue, taking over the role of Beast from Kelsey Grammer.
Screen tests are often used to see how actors look in costume when photographed or, other times, to see what kind of chemistry two stars can generate together. Given that Mystique and Beast were going to share some notable screen time, it's not a surprise that Lawrence and Hoult tested simultaneously.
We can safely assume everything went well, given the quality and popularity of the finished film. The romance blossomed during the actual shooting of the movie, which took place over the course of several months. Their public debut as a formal couple came during the Screen Actors Guild awards in 2011, which Hoult attended as Lawrence's date.
He hated the way she took off her Mystique makeup
Every person in a relationship has something about their partner that drives them crazy. There's always some little quirk that, for whatever reason, grates on one's nerves. He forgets to put the toilet seat down, she doesn't put the cap back on the toothpaste tube. That sort of thing. Big stars in relationships are no different.
During an interview with the TV entertainment program Extra, Jennifer Lawrence revealed the big thing she did that drove Nicholas Hoult bonkers. It had to do with the massive amounts of body paint she was required to wear while playing Mystique in the X-Men movies. Getting that stuff off wasn't easy, but the actress discovered that using men's shaving cream was a quick, effective way of doing it. Hoult just couldn't stand the aftereffects of the process.
"It is really good for taking paint off, but Nick used to hate it because I would come home smelling like a man and, like, too tired," she told Extra reporter AJ Calloway. "I was like, 'Don’t touch me, I’m too tired,' and he was like, 'You smell like a dude.'"
We can presume, however, that the smell was preferable to having his girlfriend be blue all the time.
Hoult used excessive feng shui in their house
Actors by nature aren't home a whole lot because they're always jetting to different parts of the world to make movies. That doesn't mean that they don't need their own houses, though. Once they achieve a measure of success and start making some decent money, purchasing a home is the logical thing to do. Some actors even have multiple homes in various places across the globe so that they're never far from a place of comfort, no matter where the job takes them.
Back in 2014, Nicholas Hoult opted to buy a house in north London to share with Jennifer Lawrence.
Despite the fact that they were both popular actors who commanded decent-sized paychecks, they decided to be a little frugal. Hoult's sister Clarista told The Independent that her brother “has been getting all his furniture from Ikea.” We can only imagine him and Lawrence assembling the notoriously difficult pieces.
More revealingly, Clarista stated that Hoult was seriously into feng shui and organized the home according to its principles. “In his room he has had branches, twigs with lights, the mattress and everything else on the floor – like water features and chairs – facing in the right direction,” she explained.
It's clear that his commitment to feng shui was as serious as his relationship with Lawrence.
She used to yell at him in a Southern accent
It's safe to say that we all act a little differently when we're mad. Maybe we gesticulate more, or maybe our voices rise an octave. Some people get crazed looks in their eyes when anger strikes. Unsurprisingly, given her appealingly quirky personality, Jennifer Lawrence has her own unique thing that happens when she gets mad, and Nicholas Hoult is the one who pointed it out to her.
During an interview with Entertainment Tonight while on a promotional tour for the movie X-Men: Apocalypse, Lawrence revealed that, when she's mad, she yells in a Southern accent. Lawrence, who comes from Louisville, Kentucky, has lived away from her home state long enough that the accent has faded, although she acknowledged to Stephen Colbert that she sometimes has nightmares that it will come back.
In describing this particular quirk, the actress told the television program, “Nick always said whenever I yelled at him it was always in a Southern accent. I used to yell at Nick and kind of see like his smile flickering. [I was] like, 'Why are you smiling?' And he's like, 'Because you sound like your dad.'"
From the sound of it, Hoult was actually charmed by this quality, even when he was in the doghouse.
They ignored each other when they were busy
A fundamental part of being in a relationship is not only that you pay attention to your partner, but also that paying attention to them is something you actively want to do. If you don't want to pay attention to them, why are you even in the relationship to begin with?
Busy movie careers are a different ballgame, though. That's probably what Jennifer Lawrence was referring to when she told Marie Claire magazine that she and Hoult ignored each other when they were busy.
In discussing the challenges of being away on location shoots, she said, "When we’re busy, we agree to mutually ignore each other. Not completely, but neither of us gets mad when the other doesn’t text back or call. Life’s super-busy."
The actress elaborated on the topic a little more, suggesting that being in the same professional situation was good for them in some ways. "Obviously you know what they're doing, and you trust them. We're so young that it would almost be like if we lived in the same city, what would happen? We'd be living together. At least this way he's in the same boat as I am. We can go out and have our own lives and know that we have each other."
Nicholas liked that Jennifer wasn't changed by fame
Jennifer Lawrence certainly has a lot of positive qualities. She's an immensely talented actress, as evidenced by her Oscar win for Silver Linings Playbook and nominations for Winter's Bone, Joy, and American Hustle. She has immense popularity with audiences, as the success of The Hunger Games franchise proves. And, of course, she's knockout beautiful, to boot. Don't forget her great sense of humor, which has been on display during her many talk show appearances.
Nicholas Hoult undoutedly loved all these things about her. There was, however, one more quality that really appealed to him. Specifically, he was attracted to the fact that she remained unaffected by her own fame, refusing to develop the kind of ego that can trap a lot of successful performers.
The actor said that her down-to-earth nature was something he really appreciated.
"It's like that thing whereby you don't believe your own hype," Hoult told the magazine Vman. "Enjoy the good times, but don't get swept away with it. I think that's something she's capable of doing, and that's what makes her special, but yeah, it is very odd, and I am just kind of a bystander in many ways. It is well-deserved for her. I haven't really seen any change in her."
The rumored screaming match
One of the toughest, most intrusive things about being a celebrity is that, any time you're in public, there are people watching you. Sometimes it's the paparazzi, but it's also just regular ordinary people who happen to be in the same place at the same time. And a percentage of those regular people know that they can run to the tabloids if they see the star doing something even remotely dramatic, like having a fight with their significant other or someone with whom they recently broke up.
Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult reportedly had just such an experience. In 2015, an anonymous eyewitness told the Star that they'd seen the celebrity power couple – who were no longer together at that point – have a screaming match in a restaurant right before the annual Comic-Con, which they were scheduled to attend to promote X-Men: Apocalypse.
The source told the tabloid that Lawrence appeared extremely upset about whatever she and her ex-boyfriend were talking about.
She allegedly threw her hands in the air and began yelling at Hoult, at which point he started yelling back. The situation reportedly ended with Lawrence getting up and storming out of the restaurant.
In their defense, it must have been very awkward to be thrust into a promotional gig together not long after splitting.
Jennifer pranked Nicholas via text
Jennifer Lawrence is known for her love of pranks. Whether she's pretending to be angry and storming out of an interview, or spray-painting over an image of Passengers co-star Chris Pratt, she enjoys pulling practical jokes on the people around her. You might think that she would spare her boyfriend from such antics. You'd be wrong. Not even Nicholas Hoult was exempt from her tomfoolery.
During a talk show appearance on The Graham Norton Show to promote X-Men: Apocalypse, Lawrence told a hilarious story about pranking him. One day, she picked up Hoult's cell phone to discover that he was in a group texting session with co-stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Josh Helman. Pretending to be him, she sent a message to the other gentlemen, suggesting that he was lactating and asking if they had ever done likewise.
Hoult was later surprised to see the text, along with stunned replies from his co-stars. McAvoy told him that he might have a hormone problem, while Fassbender responded, "I don't see what this has to do with anything."
The anecdote cracked up Graham Norton and his audience, while revealing that absolutely no one is safe from Jennifer Lawrence's hijinks. No word on whether Hoult ever got even.
Busy schedules were the reason for their breakup
Lawrence and Holt went through some ups and downs during their relationship. They were together for a while, then broke up in 2013. After reuniting on the set of X-Men: Days of Future Past, they started things back up again, only to split once more a short time later. Their on-again/off-again status indicates that they truly cared about each other at some level, yet it also suggests that something kept getting in the way of that.
The culprit, it seems, was the craziness caused by two careers on the ascent. Both actors saw their level of fame rise considerably during the course of the relationship, which meant they were highly in demand. Their work projects often kept them in separate parts of the world.
A source told Us magazine that “difficult schedules” were to blame, and that, “they just weren't together a lot. Her life is a whirlwind.” Being apart reportedly made it difficult to maintain the kind of bond necessary for a romance to succeed.
It's clear that, although things ultimately didn't work between them, they tried to remain on good terms. They were spotted being friendly at an awards show, and E! News had a source who said their breakup was “amicable.”
Jennifer had an existential crisis when they broke up
Like the old song says, breaking up is hard to do. When you go through a painful breakup and the end of a long-standing professional project at the same time, things are even harder, as Jennifer Lawrence found out. She had a bit of an existential crisis about it all.
In 2014, she and Nicholas Hoult broke up for good after five years of dating. The split coincided with the conclusion of production on the X-Men movies in which they both starred -- her as Mystique, him as Beast. The three-film series raised her level of celebrity immensely, and she has often talked about forming close friendships with her co-stars.
Having her romance and her franchise come to an end simultaneously sent her into a bit of an existential crisis.
Lawrence told legendary news reporter Diane Sawyer, "These movies had been my life for so long and they had to come first in everything. I was also in a relationship with somebody for five years and that was my life. So my life was this person and these movies, and we broke up around the same time that I wrapped those movies. Being 24 was this whole year of, ‘Who am I without these movies? Who am I without this man?’”
Although she eventually pulled things together professionally and personally, those were obviously some dark days for her.
Kristen Stewart's relationship with Nicholas and Jennifer
One of the most difficult things about being in a relationship with an actor is that they're often away from home, on location making movies with beautiful actresses or handsome actors. Many times, those movies require love scenes. At the very least, they can entail summoning up authentic emotions related to love. History is filled with tales of actors having on-set affairs, as well as marriages or relationships ruined because of such attractions.
In 2014, a rumor began to circulate that Hoult had developed feelings for Twilight star Kristen Stewart, with whom he was working on a movie called Equals. The two were seen dining together at a Los Angeles fish market, and once word got out, the tabloids had a field day speculating about it.
A subsequent rumor had Lawrence jealous of the situation and furious with Stewart as a result. She cleared the air in an interview with Marie Claire magazine, denying that there was any sort of animosity on her part. “There was something in a magazine, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s hilarious,’ because Kristen and I are friends," the actress said. "I actually [jokingly] texted her a picture of it and was like, ‘Just so you know, this is absolutely true.'"
Some of their X-Men scenes together were cut out
Given the high profile of their relationship, fans were eager to see Lawrence and Hoult share the screen together in X-Men: Days of Future Past. It came as something of a disappointment, then, when the two didn't really have a whole lot of screen time together, much less anything particularly romantic.
Audiences hoping to get a solid look at the chemistry between them were largely denied the opportunity.
During an interview with MTV News to promote a different movie, Hoult was asked about the lack of scenes with his famous girlfriend. He revealed that a few had been shot, but they ended up getting left on the cutting room floor.
"There were another couple of scenes which got cut, because they didn’t work technically in terms of the geography of how the movie played out in the end,” the actor explained. “Why [Mystique and Beast] would be here — when the world is about to end — and then we’ve nipped home quickly to have a good night’s sleep. Everyone was like, ‘well, we can’t really do that.’ So there were a couple of extra scenes which got cut, unfortunately.”
Hoult ended the interview by expressing the hope that the next installment, X-Men: Apocalypse, would "try and figure out a way to develop it more."
Her hacked photos were intended for him
In 2014, Jennifer Lawrence went through a nightmarish ordeal that no one, celebrity or regular person, would want to experience. A hacker managed to get into her iPhone and retrieve private photos, which he then spread across the internet for the world to see. She was just one of the celebrities targeted in this horrendous invasion of privacy.
The intimate pictures were things Lawrence intended for Hoult. She sent them to him while they were in different locations working on film projects. She told the Hollywood Reporter that the hack was both embarrassing and “unbelievably violating,” thanks to the easy accessibility of images intended only for the eyes of her boyfriend. “You can just be at a barbecue, and somebody can just pull them up on their phone. That's really an impossible thing to process," she said.
Fortunately, the hacker was caught and convicted, serving eighteen months in jail. As for Hoult, he was asked about the situation during a television interview with Good Day New York not long after he and Lawrence broke up. It was an awkward question to be asked at that point in time, and entirety of his reply was, “It’s shocking that things like this happen in the world. It’s a shame.”
Despite rumors, they were never engaged
It's just a part of the entertainment news cycle that whenever two stars begin dating, the tabloids start claiming that they're engaged. If the couple does indeed get married, the claims of pregnancy immediately start. There always seems to be a rush to push the celebrities on to the next step.
That backfired in a big way for OK! magazine. As reported by E! Online, the tabloid twice claimed that Lawrence and Hoult were engaged. In their February 3, 2014 issue, they said that Lawrence was "walking on air" over the proposal.
A short time later, they retracted the story, saying in a statement, "OK! magazine has issued an apology for completely falsifying a cover story claiming that Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult were engaged over the Christmas holiday, in front of her family, and with a $250,000 engagement ring, Not only was the basis of this cover story completely fabricated but it is in fact the second time in three months that OK! has published a false story of an engagement between the two parties."
They even admitted it was all a ruse to drive up sales, adding, "The fictional scenario described in the cover story, without ever checking with a representative of Lawrence or Hoult, was recklessly published to sell gossip magazines."
Nicholas had a baby with another woman
Fans loved it when Lawrence and Hoult got together, and were disappointed when they broke up. The excitement came back when they reunited, but so did the disappointment when they split a second time. Since then, many of those same fans have held out hope that the celebrity couple would somehow give it another try.
Those hopes appeared to be on the verge of coming true in March of 2018. While on a British press tour for her thriller Red Sparrow, Lawrence was rumored to be spending time with Hoult. This came on the heels of her breakup with director Darren Aronfsky and additional rumors that she was dating her Red Sparrow co-star, Joel Edgerton.
It seems safe to say that, while they might have hung out as friends, the possibility of a reconciliation just isn't in the cards. That's because in April 2018, a mere month after speculation that they were getting back together, People magazine confirmed that Hoult had just become a father. The actor had not publicly announced that his girlfriend, model Bryana Holly, was pregnant, so news that she'd delivered a baby came as a surprise to fans, and probably put the odds of him getting back together with Lawrence at about zero.
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Do you know any other secrets about the relationship between Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult? Let us know in the comments.