Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen

JenLaw

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American actress. She had lead roles in TBS's The Bill Engvall Show and in the independent films The Burning Plain and Winter's Bone, for which she received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Satellite Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. At age 20, she was the second youngest actress ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Lawrence is also known for playing Raven Darkhölme / Mystique in the 2011 film X-Men: First Class. In 2012, she achieved wider recognition starring as the heroine Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, an adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling novel of the same name. Her performance in the film garnered her notable critical praise and marked her as the highest-grossing action heroine of all time. Lawrence's performances thus far have prompted Rolling Stone to call her "the most talented young actress in America".

Lawrence was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and has two older brothers. Her parents are Karen (née Koch), who runs a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who once owned a concrete construction firm, Lawrence & Associates. She acted in local theater and, by the age of 14, had decided to pursue an acting career, persuading her parents to take her to New York City to find a talent agent. Prior to finding success in Hollywood, Lawrence attended Kammerer Middle School. She graduated from high school two years early with a 3.9 average in order to begin a career in acting.While growing up and in between acting, Lawrence served as an assistant nurse at the children's summer day camp that her mother ran.

The Hunger Games

In March 2011, Lawrence was offered the part of Katniss Everdeen in the film The Hunger Games, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins. Despite being a fan of the books, Lawrence took three days to accept the role because she was initially intimidated by the size of the movie and what it may mean for her fame. She underwent extensive training to get in shape for the role, including stunt training, archery, rock and tree climbing, combat, running, parkour, pilates, and yoga. The film was released on March 23, 2012, and set the record for the third-largest opening weekend of all time, making a record-breaking $152.5 million in three days for a non-sequel film.

The fact that The Hunger Games emerged as a big box office hit with a female lead represents a dramatic shift for the action film genre because historically, among the "top 200 worldwide box-office hits ever ($350 million and up), not one has been built around a female action star" and for the first time ever, Lawrence contradicts that. Forbes stated "No one who has seen The Hunger Games would question star Jennifer Lawrence's ability to play an action star." She is currently the highest grossing action heroine ever.

Though the film generally received positive reviews, Lawrence's strong portrayal of Katniss Everdeen was the most highly praised with Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter saying Lawrence embodies Katniss, "just as one might imagine her from the novel" and "anchors" the whole film "with impressive gravity and presence", ultimately calling her "the ideal screen actress".Kenneth Turan from the Los Angeles Times stated that Lawrence is the "best possible performer as Katniss and is the key factor in making 'Hunger Games' an involving popular entertainment with strong narrative drive that holds our attention".Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert also agreed that "Lawrence is strong and convincing in the central role".

On September 10, 2012, Lawrence began working on the film adaptation of the second novel in the The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which is scheduled to be released on November 22, 2013.


This is from : Wikipedia