Katniss Everdeen is a fictional character and the protagonist of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy.^[1] Her name comes from an edible plant called katniss. Jennifer Lawrence portrays Katniss in the movie The Hunger Games, directed by Gary Ross.

Katniss and her family come from District 12, a coal-mining district that is the poorest and least populated district in the dystopian fictional autocratic nation of Panem. In the course of the first book, The Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to replace her sister, Primrose "Prim" Everdeen, after she is called forth during Reaping Day, a day in which, annually, one male and one female tribute in the age bracket of 12 to 18 are called forth from each district to fight to the death in an arena in what are known as the Hunger Games. Katniss, after an alliance with Rue from District 11 (who reminded Katniss of her own sister), a 12 year old who had a very touching death, she joins up with fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark, compete in the Games together. She uses her knowledge of hunting and archery to survive, and the two become the victors after defying the Capitol's attempt to force one to kill the other. Throughout the next two novels, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, Katniss becomes the symbol of a rebellion for the twelve districts against the Capitol's oppression, and ultimately decides the final balance of power in Panem by killing the aspiring president of District 13, the vanguard of the rebellion, for attempting to oppress the defeated Capitol itself and presumably ordering the final bombings that resulted in Prim's death.

Origins[link]

The idea for the trilogy was based in part on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which seven boys and seven girls from Athens are sent every nine years against their will to be devoured by the Minotaur, a cycle that doesn't stop until Theseus kills the Minotaur. Collins, who heard the story when she was eight years old, was unsettled by its ruthlessness and cruelty. Collins said, "In her own way, Katniss is a futuristic Theseus."^[2] Collins also characterized the novels with the fearful sensations she experienced when her father was fighting in the Vietnam War.^[2]

In the novels, Katniss is extensively knowledgeable in foraging, wildlife, hunting, and survival techniques. Collins knew some of this background from her father, who grew up in the Great Depression and was forced to hunt to augment an extremely low food supply, although Collins saw her father bring home food from the wild during her own childhood as well. In addition, Collins researched the subject using a large stack of wilderness survival guidebooks.^[3]

Katniss and the other tributes are, in their time before participating in their Hunger Games, compelled to compete for the hearts of sponsors who donate money that can be used to buy vital supplies for them when they are in the arena. The concept of how the audiences carry nearly as much force as actual characters is based on how, in reality television and in the Roman games, the audience can both "respond with great enthusiasm or play a role in your elimination," as Collins said.^[3]

Name[link]

Katniss's first name comes from a plant that is more commonly known as Sagittaria or arrowhead, which is a tuber plant usually found in water.^[4] The root of this plant can be eaten, as Katniss does in the book. Her father once said: "As long as you can find yourself, you'll never starve." The plant also shares its name with a constellation in the Zodiac called Sagittarius, or "The Archer", which may also reference Katniss's skills in archery.

Her last name comes from Bathsheba Everdene, the central character in Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. According to Collins, "The two are very different, but both struggle with knowing their hearts".^[5]

In the books[link]

[edit] The Hunger Games

In the Hunger Games takes place in the ruins of North America: a country called Panem, containing 12 districts (formerly 13) and the shining Capitol. Katniss Everdeen and her sister, Primrose (Prim) Everdeen, go to the reaping where they are both eligible for the Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. The Hunger Games was created by the cruel Capitol; a punishment for the uprising the districts had against the Capitol. The twelve districts were given the Hunger Games; the thirteenth destroyed.

In the reaping, you are eligible to participate in The Hunger Games once you turn twelve years old, and are no longer eligible after you turn eighteen. When you turn twelve, your name is entered into the reaping once, when you're thirteen you get entered twice and so on. But there's a catch. If you were poor and starving, you were allowed to enter your name more times, for each member of your family, to receive a person's supply of grain and oil. Katniss does this at her age of sixteen, so her name was in the reaping twenty times. Prim's name was entered once.

During the reaping, Prim's name was picked by Effie Trinket, District Twelve's escort. As Prim was slowly walking up to the stage, accepting the fact that she was chosen, Katniss quickly runs up, pushes Prim behind her and volunteers to go to the Games for her. This results in Prim screaming and crying, so Gale Hawthorne, Katniss' hunting partner, carries Prim to her mother. Katniss goes to take her place on the stage. As Effie asks for a round of applause for Katniss, everyone is silent. After a few minutes, most of the crowd presses their three fingers against their mouths and holds it out to her. Katniss describes this as an ancient sign for saying "admiration," and "goodbye to someone you love."

After Katniss is selected, Effie selects the male tribute for the Games. Peeta Mellark is picked, and Katniss remembers something he did to her when they were just eleven. During the time after Katniss' father died, their family was slowly starving to death. So one day Katniss took some of Prim's baby clothes to the black market, the Hob, to sell to any willing people. Unfortunately, no one bought them. Katniss is sad and very weak, since she is unable to take any food home for her family. On the way home, she passes the bakery, where Peeta and his family work. Katniss feels dizzy when she breathes in the smell of baking bread. Then, she an idea of looking for something, anything, in the trashcans of the wealthier people in District Twelve. As she is checking Peeta's bakery's trash bins, Peeta's mother catches her and yells insults at her. Peeta sees this, and purposely burns some bread in the bakery. This, of course, gets his mother's attention, and now she's screaming at him. She even hits him on his cheek, bruising him. She tells him to throw the burned bread to their pig outside; and when he goes outside, he ends up throwing the bread to Katniss. Katniss returns home with the bread, and somehow the day after that, has the courage to venture out into the woods, where she meets Gale, and continues to hunt for food for her family with him by her side.

After Katniss and Peeta have been selected and said goodbyes to their families, they are whisked away by Haymitch Abernathy, (a previous District Twelve Victor, their mentor), and Effie Trinket to the high-speed train that awaits them. When they ride the train, they are stunnded by the how fast it moves.

When they arrive in the Capitol, Katniss and Peeta can't help but gawk at all the amazing sites District Tweleve wasn't able to show. Katniss is then met by her prep team, Flavius, Octavia, and Venia, and her stylist, Cinna. Who prepare Katniss for the Opening Ceremonies, where all the tributes from each district will have to wear something that suggests their district's industry. Coming from District Twelve, she will have to represent something about coal, or mining. Cinna decides to dress Katniss in a plain black unitard and shiny laced up boots. A catch is in the costume however; when lit, it flames. Katniss and Peeta are initially apprehensive at this arrangement, but their apprehensiveness inadvertently brings both closer together. Just before the parade, Cinna lights their headdresses and to the tribute's surprise, it doesn't burn. In addition to this, Cinna also suggests that they hold hands to present them as 'together and a team'. This distinguishes Katniss and Peeta from the rest of the tributes not only because they have better costumes, but also that they are warm and relatively friendly to each other in comparison to the other tributes, who have remained cold and stiff with each other. With this new development, both gain the attention (and attraction) of sponsors in the Capitol and have made both unforgettable. From that moment on, Katniss was known as "The Girl on Fire".

[edit] Catching Fire

Katniss and Peeta go on the Victory Tour, which is a visit to each district by the winners, strategically placed between each Hunger Games. Katniss becomes aware that uprisings are erupting. In addition, the nation's leader, President Snow, is forcing Katniss to convince the nation that she is really in love with Peeta and that her suicide pact was an act of love rather than defiance, in order to quell dissent. Gale has been presented to the nation as her cousin, but President Snow implies his knowledge that Katniss has feelings for him and threatens to have him killed to gain leverage over Katniss.

In order to save her family and friend, Katniss agrees to follow the Capitol's agenda. Peeta does the same when he realizes what is at stake. Peeta even proposes marriage to her, and she accepts, but even at that point President Snow conveys to her that her actions are insufficient. Katniss comes to realize that the rebellion in the districts is not within her power to suppress, making it impossible for her to satisfy President Snow's demands. Katniss is also confused as to the nature of her feelings for both Gale and Peeta, both of which are complicated by her fears for the future and her unwillingness to have children who could themselves be subjected to the Hunger Games. When the Quarter Quell—a special Games that takes place every 25 years and has a special set of rules—is announced, it is proclaimed that all of the current year's tributes will be selected from the pool of previous Games victors. District 12 has only three living victors: Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch Abernathy, who won the 50th Games and successfully mentored Katniss the year before. As Katniss is the only living female victor in District 12, she is the only possible female tribute, and Peeta volunteers to take Haymitch's place when Haymitch is selected. Katniss and Peeta return to the arena, working closely to survive and forming alliances and close friendships in the process.

Katniss is taken from the arena and discovers that the tributes of many districts had coordinated an escape plan and used a stolen hovercraft to fly to District 13, which was not destroyed as the Capitol had claimed. However, during the escape, Peeta is captured by the Capitol and afterwards, Gale informs Katniss that District 12 was bombed and destroyed but that her family is safe.

[edit] Mockingjay

In Mockingjay, Katniss visits the subterranean civilization of District 13 and meets with the people and their leader, President Alma Coin, after being taken to see the remains of District 12. A love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale slowly unfolds, forcing Katniss to decide whom she really wants to be with—a situation complicated by the fact that Peeta is currently being tortured in the Capitol while Gale is at Katniss's side.

Katniss agrees to be the symbolic leader of their rebellion: "the Mockingjay", the face of the rebels. She discovers that Cinna has been killed by the Capitol, but the rest of her prep team survived in District 13's captivity; they prep Katniss for the cameras when she agrees to start doing propaganda pieces for the rebels. Katniss becomes increasingly emotionally unstable by the horrors she witnesses—mass slaughter, the destruction of the only home she has ever known with 90% of the citizens of District 12 dead, many friends killed due to their association with her, and Peeta being beaten on live television. After a rescue mission in which a team from 13 brings Peeta back, she finds out his memories have been distorted by tracker jacker venom, a mind-control torturing method referred to as "hijacking". He now hates and wants to kill Katniss, believing she is a mutation created by the Capitol. Katniss becomes even more determined to kill Snow after this.

She, along with a group of sharpshooters that include Gale, Peeta, and Finnick Odair (from the Quarter Quell in the previous book), sneak into the Capitol at the cost of several of their own lives in an attempt to kill Snow. As they get close to the presidential mansion, an array of bombs are dropped from a Hovercraft, with only some exploding, killing the refugee Capitol children on whom they were dropped. Rebel medics, including Prim, rush to help the children, but as they arrive, the rest of the bombs explode. Prim is killed in front of Katniss, while Katniss's body is severely burned. Although she makes a remarkable physical recovery, Katniss temporarily loses the ability to speak, traumatized by the death of her sister.

Meanwhile, President Snow is arrested, found guilty of his crimes against the people of Panem, and sentenced to death. Per Katniss' request, she is designated as his executioner. Before the execution, Snow tells Katniss that the bombs weren't his but the rebels' way of gaining sympathy in the Capitol for their cause, making it look like the work of Snow. Although she initially refuses to believe Snow, Katniss realizes that the attack method was identical to a trap Gale and fellow Quarter Quell tribute Beetee had designed. Eventually, Katniss comes to suspect that Coin ordered the attack on the children in order to trick the Capitol citizens into thinking that the government had killed their children, therefore winning the loyalty of the Capitol's citizens.

Furthermore, Coin suggests that there will be one last Hunger Games where the children from the Capitol will be reaped. She seeks the approval of the surviving victors before making these games official, and Katniss votes yes as a means of avenging Prim's death. Just before Snow's execution, Katniss realizes that Snow was telling her the truth and that President Coin will be no better or different a President than Snow had ever been. Making her decision, she raises her bow and shoots Coin instead, killing her. She is arrested and placed in solitary confinement, where she attempts to commit suicide by starving herself and overdosing. However, she is ultimately released on the grounds that she wasn't mentally well at the time of the assassination and is sent back to District 12. Katniss, accompanied by Haymitch, goes back to her home in Victor's Village (a house victors get when they win the Games in their District) and is put under care.

Driven into a deep depression, Katniss refuses to leave her house until Peeta (who by then has largely recovered from his brainwashing) returns to District 12 to plant primroses outside, in memory of her sister. Katniss begins to regain her mental health, and she and Peeta deal with their feelings by creating a book composed of information about their deceased friends and family (eventually Haymitch joins them in this project). Katniss's mother, who chose not to return to District 12 because of all the painful memories of her deceased husband and daughter, decides to work in District 4 as medical personnel. Gale got a "fancy job" in District 2 and is seen regularly on television. A few hundred District 12 survivors return home and rebuild it, where they no longer mine coal, producing food and manufacturing medicine instead.

Epilogue[link]

In the Epilogue, Katniss and Peeta are married and they have conceived two children. She talks of how Peeta begged her for them. Their first child is a girl and has Katniss' dark hair and Peeta's blue eyes while her younger brother has Katniss' grey eyes and Peeta's blond hair. Katniss still has nightmares and is worried about the fact that her children would know her and Peeta's involvement in the Games and the Rebellion. But Peeta tells her that everything would be okay.

Characterization[link]

Physical appearance[link]

Katniss is described as having "straight black hair, olive skin, and gray eyes," which are typical characteristics of the Seam. Katniss normally wears her hair in a long braid down her back. She is thin and not very tall, but is strong for her size due to her hunting to feed her family. Katniss is sixteen years old during the 74th Hunger Games & seventeen during the Quarter Quell.

Background[link]

Katniss and her family live in the futuristic nation of Panem, located on the continent once known as North America, which was destroyed in a global war. Panem is run by an all-powerful city called the Capitol, located in the Rocky Mountains, which is surrounded by 12 districts, each having a specific purpose in supplying something to the Capitol. The story starts in District 12, Katniss's home, the coal-mining district. District 12 is the poorest of the districts, and Katniss lives with her mother and sister in the poorest part of town, the Seam.

Katniss's father, a coal miner, was killed in a mine explosion when Katniss was 11. After her husband's death, Katniss's mother went into a deep depression and was unable to care for her children. On the brink of starvation a few weeks before her twelfth birthday on May 8th Katniss wandered into the richer part of town, hoping to steal some scraps from the garbage bins of rich merchants. The baker's son, Peeta, whom she did not know, took a beating from his mother for intentionally burning two loaves of bread, knowing that he would be told to throw them out. He was told to give the two loaves of bread to the pig, but instead gave them to Katniss. Katniss took them home to her family, who had not eaten in days. The bread gave them hope and kept them motivated, leaving Katniss feeling resentfully indebted to Peeta.

A few days after the incident with the bread, Katniss decided to go into the woods surrounding her district to hunt illegally and gather plants to eat, which was how her father had gotten most of the family's food before he died. There she met a boy named Gale Hawthorne. Together, they provide for both their families and develop a strong friendship.

Katniss's mother slowly surfaces from her depression and is able to return to her job as an apothecary, and Katniss makes an effort to forgive her. However, despite her mending relationship with her mother and strong friendship with Gale, Katniss remains adamant that Prim, her younger sister, is "the only person she's certain she loves".

Personality[link]

Collins has described Katniss as being an independent survivalist, lethal, but good at thinking outside the box.^[6] Katniss's past hardships (her father's death, mother's depression, and near starvation) have made her a survivor, and she will endure hardship and hard work to preserve her own life and the life of her family. She states herself that nice people are the most dangerous because they get inside of her and that they could hurt her badly when she least expected it. She has shown she will protect those she loves, no matter the cost to herself, as shown when she volunteers for the Games to save her little sister Prim, when she shields Gale to keep him from being whipped, even when it means a lash for herself, and when she stoically decides during her second Games to die to save Peeta. Because the majority of her time before the Games was spent keeping herself and her family alive, she does not understand many social cues and is often ignorant of other people's emotions, such as when she doesn't recognize Gale's hints at his growing affection for her. She has no experience with romance or love other than that of her family, and doesn't believe she wants it. She never actually understands that Peeta was telling the truth when he declared his love for her in the pre-game interview until after the games itself. She also has large trust issues, and does not trust anyone. She plans never to be married nor have children that would grow up subject to the reaping. In Catching Fire, Katniss struggles to understand Panem political issues as she has had very little education or experience of politics.^[7] She also gradually realizes that there are more important things than survival and decides she is willing to die for Peeta and the rebellion.

Skills[link]

Katniss is a highly skilled archer, hunter, and trapper, having learned these from her father and Gale, honed to keep her family from starving. She uses her archery and her daring to score an 11 (out of a possible 12) during the pre-games judging. She has been well educated on edible, medicinal, and poisonous plant life of District 12. Additionally, she has a singing voice that is so beautiful birds stay quiet to listen, also from her father, although she has been reluctant to sing since his death. Katniss is a skilled tree-climber, which has benefited her in hunting and the Games. She is usually very logical except for times when her emotions get in the way. Peeta mentions that she has an effect on people around her, the image she projects, and he admires her for it.

Critical reception[link]

Katniss has received mostly positive reviews. In a review for The Hunger Games, Stephen King said she was a "cool kid" with a "lame name," before adding, "once I got over [her] name...I got to like her a lot."^[8] Francisca Goldsmith in Booklist said, "Although Katniss may be skilled with a bow and arrow and adept at analyzing her opponents’ next moves, she has much to learn about personal sentiments, especially her own."^[9] Publishers Weekly says, "It's a credit to Collins's skill at characterization that Katniss, like a new Theseus, is cold, calculating and still likeable."^[10] The Cleveland Plain Dealer stated in a review for Catching Fire that "Katniss in a pensive mood seems out of step with the kick-butt assassin," before adding that her loyalty and kindheartedness were enjoyed.^[11] John Green, in the New York Times, called Katniss a "memorably complex and fascinating heroine".^[12] Also in The New York Times, Katie Roiphe said that Katniss in Mockingjay was "a great character without being exactly likeable. [She] is bossy, moody, bratty, demanding, prickly", and commented that this is what makes many recent literature heroines likeable.^[13] Entertainment Weekly compared Katniss to Bella Swan from the Twilight Saga and said that "unlike Twilight's passive, angsty Bella, Katniss is a self-possessed young woman who demonstrates equal parts compassion and fearlessness."^[14]

Laura Miller of Salon.com finds Katniss too virtuous and without motivation, negatively contrasting Katniss to Bella of Twilight, saying, "In some ways, Katniss is more passive than Bella, allowed to have all kinds of goodies but only if she demonstrates her virtue by not really wanting them in the first place," and, "For all her irritating flaws, Bella, at least, has the courage of her desire. For what, besides a well-earned vengeance, does Katniss Everdeen truly hunger?" However, Miller did think that she was "in many respects an improvement on...Bella".^[15] However, The Daily Telegraph's David Gritten labelled her "a great role model for girls" who "has love interests, but doesn’t mope passively over boys".^[16]

Film adaptation[link]

Actresses Lyndsy Fonseca^[17] and Kaya Scodelario^[18] expressed interest in the film and received scripts in October 2010,^[19] while Oscar-nominated actress Hailee Steinfeld met with director Gary Ross.^[20] Chloë Moretz,^[21] Malese Jow^[22] and Jodelle Ferland^[23] publicly expressed interest in playing Katniss. Lionsgate confirmed in March 2011 that about 30 actresses either met with them or read for the role, including Jennifer Lawrence, Abigail Breslin, Emma Roberts, Saoirse Ronan, Emily Browning, and Shailene Woodley, as well as Steinfeld, Moretz, Fonseca, and Scodelario.^[24] On March 16, 2011 it was announced that Jennifer Lawrence of Winter's Bone landed the coveted role of Katniss Everdeen.^[25] Lawrence was 20 at the time, a bit older than the character.^[26] However, author Suzanne Collins said that the actress who plays Katniss has to have "a certain maturity and power" and said she would rather the actress be older than younger.^[27] Collins states that Lawrence was the "only one who truly captured the character I wrote in the book" and that she had "every essential quality necessary to play Katniss."^[28]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Katniss Everdeen at the Hunger Games Wiki.

Jennifer Lawrence
Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards, February 27, 2011
Born	Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (1990-08-15) August 15, 1990 (age 21) Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2006–present

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence^[1] (born August 15, 1990) is an American film and television 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. She is also known for playing Mystique in X-Men: First Class. In 2012, Lawrence 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.^[2][3] Lawrence's performances thus far have prompted Rolling Stone to define her as "the most talented young actress in America."^[4]

Early life[link]

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.^[5][6][7] She acted in local theater^[8] 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.^[5][9] While growing up and in between acting, Lawrence served as an assistant nurse at the children's summer day camp that her mother ran.^[10]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Lawrence had never taken any drama classes/lessons for acting.^[5] She started out her acting career in the TBS comedy The Bill Engvall Show, playing the eldest daughter of Lauren Pearson. Written and created by Bill Engvall and Michael Leeson, the show is set in a Denver suburb and follows the life of 'Bill Pearson' (played by Engvall), a family counselor whose own family could use a little dose of counseling. The series went on the air in September 2007 and was canceled in 2009 after three seasons. Lawrence received the Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Performer in a TV Series for her role in the show.

Lawrence had guest-roles in the television series The Devil You Know, Cold Case, Medium, and Monk.^[11]

In 2008, she appeared in a small role in the film Garden Party as Tiff. It was directed by Jason Freeland. The same year, Lawrence appeared on the big screen in Guillermo Arriaga's film directorial debut The Burning Plain, opposite Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. Her performance in the film earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young emerging actor/actress at the Venice Film Festival in 2008.^[12]

Still in 2008, Lawrence had the lead role in another film director's debut, Lori Petty's family drama The Poker House, opposite Selma Blair and Chloë Moretz, where she starred as Agnes, a young girl victim of abuse.^[13] Lawrence was awarded the Los Angeles Film Festival for Outstanding Performance for her role in the film. She appeared in the music video for the song "The Mess I Made", from the 2009 album Losing Sleep by Parachute.

2010–present[link]

Lawrence's lead role in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone, which won best picture at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, is generally cited as a breakout performance for her.^[14] She portrays Ree Dolly, a seventeen-year-old in the Ozark Mountains who cares for her mentally ill mother and her younger brother and sister. Ree then discovers that her father put their house and land up as a bond for a court appearance before he disappeared, and the family now faces eviction.^[15] The performance was highly acclaimed by film critics. David Denby, writing in The New Yorker, said "the movie would be unimaginable with anyone less charismatic playing Ree."^[16] Peter Travers from the Rolling Stone also spoke highly of her and noted that "her performance is more than acting, it's a gathering storm. Lawrence's eyes are a roadmap to what's tearing Ree apart".^[17] Receiving accolades for her performance, Lawrence was awarded the National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress on January 25, 2011, becoming the second-youngest actress to date to be nominated for the category,^[18] and also accrued nominations from the Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, and the Satellite Awards among others.

Lawrence had a role in The Beaver, a dark comedy starring Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson that was filmed in 2009, but which spent an extended period of time stalled due to controversies surrounding Gibson. It was released on May 6, 2011. Lawrence co-starred in the independent film Like Crazy, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and received a wider release by Paramount Pictures.^[19]

On June 18, 2011, it was announced that Lawrence was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In June 2011, she starred as shape-shifting villain Mystique alongside James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in X-Men: First Class,^[20] a prequel to the rest of the X-Men film series and will be reprising this role again in the sequel. Lawrence's Mystique is a younger version of the character played by Rebecca Romijn in earlier X-Men films.

She is also set to star alongside Elisabeth Shue in Mark Tonderai's thriller House at the End of the Street,^[21] which completed filming in 2010 and is in post-production.^[22]

Lawrence was cast in David O. Russell's The Silver Linings Playbook, opposite Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. She was originally cast to play "O" in the film Savages directed by Oliver Stone, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.

In 2012, Lawrence replaced Angelina Jolie in Susanne Bier's period thriller, The Falling, based on the novel Serena by Ron Rash.^[23][24] She will be playing the role of Serena who learns that she can never bear her husband children and is set out to murder the woman who bore her husband an illegitimate son before their marriage.

[edit] 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.^[25] 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.^[26][27] 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.^[28]

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.^[29] She is currently the highest grossing action heroine.

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".^[30] 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".^[31] Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert also agreed that "Lawrence is strong and convincing in the central role".^[32]

Lawrence will start filming the film adaptation of the second novel in the The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire, this summer, which is scheduled to be released on November 23, 2013.^[33]

Personal life[link]

Lawrence lived in New York City for the first few years of her career, but now resides in Santa Monica, California.^[5] She likes to paint, knit sweaters and scarves, surf, and play the guitar.^[34][35] She has been dating English actor Nicholas Hoult since 2011.^[36]

Filmography[link]

References[link]