How Jennifer Lawrence Transforms Herself Into ‘X-Men’s’ Mystique

Jennifer Lawrence has had many challenging roles in her extremely busy and demanding career, and among them is playing the shape-shifting mutant Mystique from the X-Men movie franchise. While shooting X-Men: Apocalypse, co-star James McAvoy plays a prank on the actress. J. Law is ambushed by McAvoy as she takes a break to pee, shooting her with a BB gun as the actress relieves herself on a funnel.

Definitely, it’s one of many experiences that Jennifer Lawrence will never forget from playing the role of one of the most powerful and intriguing mutants in the X-Men universe. The X-Men premise is that every few millennia, it is inevitable for mankind to evolve into more sophisticated beings with special powers. And that is because evolution is a natural and unavoidable process.

However, the X-Men philosophy adds an extra layer to the evolution process as it is known from textbooks. The add-on goes that it takes a very painful experience to trigger the mutation, such as being tortured. For Lawrence, what co-star McAvoy does when she needed to relieve herself while shooting the film is one that definitely fits the category.

Lawrence confides to Entertainment Weekly: “James McAvoy shot me with BB gun while I was peeing.”

In so doing, Jennifer’s co-star makes an already difficult process a trifle more difficult. To play Mystique, Jennifer Lawrence is required to wear a blue body suit that works like a second skin. The suit only allows her to pee by using a funnel.

“It’s so hard to do…because you have to stop while you’re in the middle of peeing to let the rest of it go — it’s a whole scientific process.”

The body-hugging suit for Jennifer Lawrence is actually a step up from the previous process, back to when she first inherited the role of Mystique from Rebecca Romijn. Still, Lawrence will not miss any opportunity to play the role again if she can. Mystique is a blue-skinned mutant with orange hair. She has blue scales all over her body and does not wear any clothes. As such, the character is an upgrade from the existing tattoo culture, which is what primarily endears the mutant to X-Men fans.

Hence, J. Law is almost completely naked while playing the role, which causes her co-stars to make fun of her during the shoot. Still, Jennifer Lawrence enjoys playing Mystique, which is one of the most popular mutants in the X-Men gallery. Business Insider has been able to document the old process of preparing Lawrence for the role. The process used to take eight hours, and then subsequently reduced to just three hours.

Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique is impeccable in #XMenApocalypse pic.twitter.com/fCVzxv29KY

— JEnnIFER LAWreNCE? Fã (@Passengers0501) May 12, 2016

“Mystique’s scales were attached first, followed by three layers of blue paint airbrushed onto her, and then another five layers of what the actress called a splattering effect were applied.”

Lawrence adds: “I know that everyone feels sorry for me, but it’s so much fun. It’s like a sleepover, except I’m naked and getting painted.”

Lucky for Lawrence the process has now evolved into only wearing the blue body suit, although this new process makes it especially difficult when nature calls. Still, Lawrence considers it a huge privilege to play the role of Mystique. In X-Men: Apocalypse, the mutant rallies her fellow X-Men into fighting an ancient, God-like mutant that attempts to destroy the world.

Although Lawrence enjoys playing Mystique, she admits that it once added some minor irritation to her relationship with her former boyfriend, Nicholas Hoult, who plays the role of Beast in the X-Men franchise’s reboot edition. This was her having to resort to using shaving cream in order to facilitate the removal of the blue paint on her body after a Mystique shoot. Apparently, Hoult would hate sleeping with Jennifer then because the shaving cream made the actress smell like a man.

Oh well, quite the sacrifice for Jennifer Lawrence, but ask her again, and she will never hesitate to reprise her mutant role. It’s simply one of those career experiences that she will never trade for anything in the world.

[Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images]