Exclusive: Joel Edgerton defends Jennifer Lawrence and controversial photocall for Francis Lawrence’s RED SPARROW

On Tuesday afternoon the cast of Red Sparrow got together for a photo shoot on the roof of a London hotel, and it sparked a gender equality debate on Twitter.

That’s because it was a very cold day and Jennifer Lawrence was wearing just a revealing black evening gown, while her male director and co-stars were all covered up in several layers of warm clothing.

Joel Edgerton, one of the men pictured with Jennifer in the Red Sparrow photocall in question, says it was a “lose-lose situation”, in an exclusive interview with Yahoo Movies UK today.

“It was a really weird situation because if it was real life I would give you my jacket but right now I feel like I would just be upsetting some designer somewhere,” the actor told Yahoo Movies UK. “They gave her a dress to wear, a dress they wouldn’t want covered in a coat.

“I did see [the Twitter backlash], it was pretty funny but look, I don’t know if it’s double standards. It’s weird because on the one hand if you criticise her for looking that way than you are also criticising the whole volume of…the whole history of the way women are expected to look. It’s sort of a lose-lose situation.”

“Yesterday, on the balcony, seemed like a lose-lose situation because if Jennifer wore jeans and a coat I’m sure somebody else would have criticised her,” Joel continued. “At some point it seemed like the weather was blamed because it was the optics, plus the weather, plus the four of us in our outfits; the sum total of all of it was like a f**king international incident!

“It seems like everywhere Jennifer goes she’s part of some international incident.”

You can read the full interview on Yahoo Movies UK here.

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