The rise of Jennifer Lawrence - Hollywood's most charismatic leading lady, Catching Fire, the second film in the Hunger Games franchise, opens this week against a backdrop of fevered expectations. It seems certain to follow in the footsteps of its predecessor from last year by enticing millions of (mostly) younger film audiences to pay good money to see it.
One can never be absolutely sure of such things until a film opens, but what’s beyond doubt is that its lead actress – Jennifer Lawrence, Jen, J-Law, call her what you will – is currently the hottest movie star in the western world. She is just 23 years old, but her role as the resourceful Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen has propelled her to a point where the film world is now at her feet.
Lawrence has been touring capital cities across the world these past few days, promoting Catching Fire for all she’s worth and generally conducting a charm offensive: “charm” being the operative word. Arguably the most striking thing about her is how natural she is in person, how unaffected by a level of sudden celebrity that would turn the heads and play havoc with the value systems of most people her age.
But before we come to that, let’s consider a new list of this year’s 100 Most Valuable Stars, compiled by New York magazine’s website, Vulture. It took into account box office, media coverage and the opinions of studio executives, among other factors – and concluded that Jennifer Lawrence ended up at number 3, behind only Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) Leonardo DiCaprio (The Great Gatsby, Django Unchained) and ahead of Sandra Bullock (Gravity, The Heat).
Each of those three other actors were already established film stars before Lawrence was even six years old. Last year, she was number 16 on the list: it’s a sign of how far she’s come, and how fast. Vulture describes her as “the biggest and most valuable young star we’ve got,” and observes: “Nobody has navigated her fame better than her.”
Lawrence has been deftly proving that last point on her recent travels, showing a pleasing blend of self-deprecation, independent-mindedness and sound common sense.
In a discussion before an audience organised by Yahoo, she was asked for advice by young girls on the subject of body image, and her opinion of people who made judgements about others based on appearances. “Well, screw those people,” said Lawrence genially. “I experienced that in school. You see this airbrushed, perfect world, but if you don’t look like that, what are you going to do? Be hungry every day to make other people happy? That’s just dumb.”
But she’s not too high-minded to talk trivia too. Asked about a new blonde pixie cut she was sporting, she explained it was a wig; she had cut her hair because she didn’t like its length. Pulling a disapproving face, she noted: “It couldn’t get any uglier.” No wonder millions of young girls want her as their BFF: best friend forever.
She’d already proved her class when being interrupted during a TV interview after this year’s Oscars by Jack Nicholson, openly ogling her while expressing his admiration. She held her ground, trading smart, rapid quips with him before turning back to the interview, open-mouthed and star-struck in the realisation that she was mixing it with a Hollywood legend. Perfect: just what an ideal BFF would do.
But the identification with Lawrence that she triggers in her fans largely stems from her portrayal in the first Hunger Games movie as the lithe, righteous, resolute archery expert Katniss Everdeen. She’s an admirable character: loyal to her family, possessed of an iron will, but not too hard-bitten to be immune to the pangs of love.
Gary Ross, who directed Lawrence in the first Hunger Games movie, recognised her virtues immediately: “She’s a very strong, confident young woman. She’s very confident in her own talent and who she is as a woman, and I think that all these things made her want to dive into the role. It was the easiest casting decision I ever made in my life.”
Her upbringing was refreshingly normal.
She was raised in Louisville, Kentucky, a genteel city known for its connection with horse racing. Her father owned a construction company, while her mother runs children’s summer day camps. Jennifer, who has two older brothers, easily graduated from high school two years before schedule, and, having acted in local theatre, asked her parents to take her to New York and find her an agent. She made her acting debut on an obscure, short-lived TV sitcom, The Bill Engvall Show, when she was 17. That same year she auditioned for the Bella Swan role in Twilight that went to Kristen Stewart.
Lawrence first came to my attention in 2008, when I saw her in The Burning Plain at the Venice Film Festival; she had just turned 18. She played the daughter of Kim Basinger’s adulterous wife in a small, sun-scorched town on the Mexican border. Lawrence won an award as the festival’s best young actor. The film’s Mexican director Guillermo Arriaga, who wrote the screenplays for Amores Perros and Babel, told me in Venice: “She’s a considerable talent, and she’ll be a huge name.”
But The Burning Plain, a criminally underrated film both here and in America, received only limited distribution and was barely seen. Still, it proved beyond doubt that Lawrence had immense promise; but her next movie confirmed her stature.
In Winter’s Bone (2010) she was the undisputed lead: as Ree Dolly, a determined, resourceful teenage girl in America’s poverty-stricken rural backwoods, where illegal crystal meth production seemed to be the main industry, searching for her absent father.
This astonishingly mature performance deservedly earned her an Oscar nomination as best lead actress; she lost out to Natalie Portman in Black Swan, but the message was clear: Lawrence had arrived.
Hollywood’s embrace was both warm and immediate: In 2011, she took her first steps in mainstream movies, playing Mystique on the comic book adventure X-Men: First Class, and nailing the role with apparent ease. And early last year Lawrence landed the high-profile gig of announcing the Oscar nominations on television.
But more significantly, she had already agreed to play Katniss Everdeen. The movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s runaway bestsellers was always planned to be a franchise rather than a one-off: as it is, four films will cover Collins’s trilogy. And when Lawrence was just 21, she was backed to be the actor to carry the weight of that whole franchise primarily on her shoulders. (Contrast this fact with other teen-friendly franchises: Emma Watson and Rupert Grint played prominent, crucial roles, co-starring alongside Daniel Radcliffe in the Harry Potter films, while Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart effectively shared top billing in the Twilight series.)
To say that the decision about casting Lawrence has been vindicated would be to understate the fact: the first Hunger Games film grossed $408 million domestically on its release, making it the third highest-grossing film in the States last year. It earned another $283 million in other markets, and though it performs slightly more weakly outside the US, it was still one of 2012’s top 10 movies worldwide. There’s no question about it: Jennifer Lawrence can carry a big film.
In addition, she either has impeccable instincts or she’s shrewdly advised: Lawrence has furthered her craft (and her standing in the business) by taking two key supporting roles in films featuring older, far more experienced actors: she was easily the best thing in The Silver Linings Playbook, as an attractive but disturbed young widow, dulling her emotional pain with medication. In the forthcoming American Hustle, she plays the unpredictable wife of a notorious con-man played by Christian Bale.
And she should embark soon on a second film version of John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden; the first one (from 1955) starred James Dean and was directed by Elia Kazan. Gary Ross, who made the first Hunger Games film, is set to direct. Lawrence will reportedly play the role of Cathy Ames, an abused young woman who becomes a madam in a brothel. It’s further evidence of her willingness to stretch herself and her acting career.
Hollywood is a difficult place for young actresses to negotiate a career: many make a flying start to their career, based on their freshness and beauty, but fall by the wayside, victims to the industry’s endless (and tiresome) search for ‘the new girl in t town.’ Jennifer Lawrence may already be big enough to have overcome that potential pitfall; with her sheer talent and seriousness about acting she could be unassailable. We shall see. Meanwhile, in all senses of the phrase, she’s the real thing.
One can never be absolutely sure of such things until a film opens, but what’s beyond doubt is that its lead actress – Jennifer Lawrence, Jen, J-Law, call her what you will – is currently the hottest movie star in the western world. She is just 23 years old, but her role as the resourceful Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen has propelled her to a point where the film world is now at her feet.
Lawrence has been touring capital cities across the world these past few days, promoting Catching Fire for all she’s worth and generally conducting a charm offensive: “charm” being the operative word. Arguably the most striking thing about her is how natural she is in person, how unaffected by a level of sudden celebrity that would turn the heads and play havoc with the value systems of most people her age.
But before we come to that, let’s consider a new list of this year’s 100 Most Valuable Stars, compiled by New York magazine’s website, Vulture. It took into account box office, media coverage and the opinions of studio executives, among other factors – and concluded that Jennifer Lawrence ended up at number 3, behind only Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) Leonardo DiCaprio (The Great Gatsby, Django Unchained) and ahead of Sandra Bullock (Gravity, The Heat).
Each of those three other actors were already established film stars before Lawrence was even six years old. Last year, she was number 16 on the list: it’s a sign of how far she’s come, and how fast. Vulture describes her as “the biggest and most valuable young star we’ve got,” and observes: “Nobody has navigated her fame better than her.”
Lawrence has been deftly proving that last point on her recent travels, showing a pleasing blend of self-deprecation, independent-mindedness and sound common sense.
In a discussion before an audience organised by Yahoo, she was asked for advice by young girls on the subject of body image, and her opinion of people who made judgements about others based on appearances. “Well, screw those people,” said Lawrence genially. “I experienced that in school. You see this airbrushed, perfect world, but if you don’t look like that, what are you going to do? Be hungry every day to make other people happy? That’s just dumb.”
But she’s not too high-minded to talk trivia too. Asked about a new blonde pixie cut she was sporting, she explained it was a wig; she had cut her hair because she didn’t like its length. Pulling a disapproving face, she noted: “It couldn’t get any uglier.” No wonder millions of young girls want her as their BFF: best friend forever.
She’d already proved her class when being interrupted during a TV interview after this year’s Oscars by Jack Nicholson, openly ogling her while expressing his admiration. She held her ground, trading smart, rapid quips with him before turning back to the interview, open-mouthed and star-struck in the realisation that she was mixing it with a Hollywood legend. Perfect: just what an ideal BFF would do.
But the identification with Lawrence that she triggers in her fans largely stems from her portrayal in the first Hunger Games movie as the lithe, righteous, resolute archery expert Katniss Everdeen. She’s an admirable character: loyal to her family, possessed of an iron will, but not too hard-bitten to be immune to the pangs of love.
Gary Ross, who directed Lawrence in the first Hunger Games movie, recognised her virtues immediately: “She’s a very strong, confident young woman. She’s very confident in her own talent and who she is as a woman, and I think that all these things made her want to dive into the role. It was the easiest casting decision I ever made in my life.”
Her upbringing was refreshingly normal.
She was raised in Louisville, Kentucky, a genteel city known for its connection with horse racing. Her father owned a construction company, while her mother runs children’s summer day camps. Jennifer, who has two older brothers, easily graduated from high school two years before schedule, and, having acted in local theatre, asked her parents to take her to New York and find her an agent. She made her acting debut on an obscure, short-lived TV sitcom, The Bill Engvall Show, when she was 17. That same year she auditioned for the Bella Swan role in Twilight that went to Kristen Stewart.
Lawrence first came to my attention in 2008, when I saw her in The Burning Plain at the Venice Film Festival; she had just turned 18. She played the daughter of Kim Basinger’s adulterous wife in a small, sun-scorched town on the Mexican border. Lawrence won an award as the festival’s best young actor. The film’s Mexican director Guillermo Arriaga, who wrote the screenplays for Amores Perros and Babel, told me in Venice: “She’s a considerable talent, and she’ll be a huge name.”
But The Burning Plain, a criminally underrated film both here and in America, received only limited distribution and was barely seen. Still, it proved beyond doubt that Lawrence had immense promise; but her next movie confirmed her stature.
In Winter’s Bone (2010) she was the undisputed lead: as Ree Dolly, a determined, resourceful teenage girl in America’s poverty-stricken rural backwoods, where illegal crystal meth production seemed to be the main industry, searching for her absent father.
This astonishingly mature performance deservedly earned her an Oscar nomination as best lead actress; she lost out to Natalie Portman in Black Swan, but the message was clear: Lawrence had arrived.
Hollywood’s embrace was both warm and immediate: In 2011, she took her first steps in mainstream movies, playing Mystique on the comic book adventure X-Men: First Class, and nailing the role with apparent ease. And early last year Lawrence landed the high-profile gig of announcing the Oscar nominations on television.
But more significantly, she had already agreed to play Katniss Everdeen. The movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s runaway bestsellers was always planned to be a franchise rather than a one-off: as it is, four films will cover Collins’s trilogy. And when Lawrence was just 21, she was backed to be the actor to carry the weight of that whole franchise primarily on her shoulders. (Contrast this fact with other teen-friendly franchises: Emma Watson and Rupert Grint played prominent, crucial roles, co-starring alongside Daniel Radcliffe in the Harry Potter films, while Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart effectively shared top billing in the Twilight series.)
To say that the decision about casting Lawrence has been vindicated would be to understate the fact: the first Hunger Games film grossed $408 million domestically on its release, making it the third highest-grossing film in the States last year. It earned another $283 million in other markets, and though it performs slightly more weakly outside the US, it was still one of 2012’s top 10 movies worldwide. There’s no question about it: Jennifer Lawrence can carry a big film.
In addition, she either has impeccable instincts or she’s shrewdly advised: Lawrence has furthered her craft (and her standing in the business) by taking two key supporting roles in films featuring older, far more experienced actors: she was easily the best thing in The Silver Linings Playbook, as an attractive but disturbed young widow, dulling her emotional pain with medication. In the forthcoming American Hustle, she plays the unpredictable wife of a notorious con-man played by Christian Bale.
And she should embark soon on a second film version of John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden; the first one (from 1955) starred James Dean and was directed by Elia Kazan. Gary Ross, who made the first Hunger Games film, is set to direct. Lawrence will reportedly play the role of Cathy Ames, an abused young woman who becomes a madam in a brothel. It’s further evidence of her willingness to stretch herself and her acting career.
Hollywood is a difficult place for young actresses to negotiate a career: many make a flying start to their career, based on their freshness and beauty, but fall by the wayside, victims to the industry’s endless (and tiresome) search for ‘the new girl in t town.’ Jennifer Lawrence may already be big enough to have overcome that potential pitfall; with her sheer talent and seriousness about acting she could be unassailable. We shall see. Meanwhile, in all senses of the phrase, she’s the real thing.
