Jennifer Lawrence’s Directing Project Is Delirious

Jennifer Lawrence is having a big week. After giving a revealing interview about what she values in friends, dislocating her toe, and doing shots on the red carpet for the new Hunger Games movie, Lawrence has her eye on a new endeavor: directing a feature film. “I’ve signed on to direct something called Project Delirium — it’s based on this article about mental warfare in the ’60s, like an acid experiment gone terribly wrong,” Lawrence tells EW. The article in question, “Operation Delirium,” was published in 2012 in the New Yorker. Operation Delirium was an initiative to test the effects of chemical weapons on Army soldiers in preparation for a potential chemical attack by the Soviets or another enemy. The piece itself tells the story of Colonel James Ketchum, who “dreamed of war without killing.” To that end, he conducted a series of now-infamous experiments on men who may still bear psychic or physical scars. If you have time to read it, it’s worth doing so. The project is the culmination of a dream for Lawrence. “It’s funny, I’ve wanted to direct since I was 16 and always thought I should start making steps towards that,” Lawrence tells EW. “If I had tried to do it earlier, I wouldn’t have been ready. Now I actually feel ready.” Whatever her preparedness level, she’s been handed some really rich source material. We can’t wait to see what she can do.