| Entertainment Weekly's Hunger Games Exclusive |
It’s a shock to see Jennifer Lawrence with dark hair. Earlier
this spring, when Lionsgate announced that the actress would
anchor The Hunger Games, the first in a series of films based on
Suzanne Collins’ wildly popular dystopian trilogy, there was a
predictable outcry from some young fans.
They feared that Lawrence, the 20-year-old who earned an Oscar
nomination for her performance in last year’s harshly beautiful
indie Winter’s Bone, was too old, too blond, too tall, too pale,
too pretty to play the part of a teenager fighting to the death
in a brutal government-ordered competition. And yet here she is
in early May at a Los Angeles archery range, with one intense
week of training left before she’s due on the North Carolina set.
And she looks every bit as fierce as fans would demand of their
Katniss Everdeen. Lawrence’s dark tresses are scraped back into a
ponytail, her skin tawny from long mornings in the sun. “I think
I just have to stay tan,” she tells me of adjusting to her new
hair. “Or I’ll look like the girl from The Ring.”
For over a month, Lawrence has been enduring a grueling training
program consisting of archery, track work, stunt drills, and
yoga. She says that her archery coach, a four-time Olympian from
Eastern Europe, spent weeks bemoaning her lack of skills.
Apparently, it was only after the woman declared her “helpless!”
that Lawrence gritted her teeth and hit the bull’s-eye. “What
happened?” her coach cried in surprise. Lawrence turned to her
and growled, her Southern accent making a rare appearance, “You
pissed me off!”
Today, Lawrence holds a large bow aloft as her eyes narrow on the
target. When her arrow thwacks into the bull’s-eye, she smiles
and – as she would do when she scored a basket for her childhood
basketball team in Louisville, KY – launches into cartwheels.
Lawrence needs to be in peak condition to embody Katniss, the 16-
year-old girl plucked from her district to battle other unlucky
children in a reality TV death match.
Gary Ross, who’s directing The Hunger Games (in theaters March
23, 2012), stressed to her trainer that while he by no means
wants her gaunt when shooting begins on the PG-13 film later this
month, she does have to portray a girl desperate for food.
(Meanwhile, costars Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, who’ll
play Katniss’ staunch District 12 allies Peeta and Gale, are busy
bulking themselves up in a weight-training regimen. “Apparently,
I’m the only one in the district who’s starving,” jokes Lawrence.)
When Lawrence officially signed on to play Katniss, some fans may
have complained, but the revered author of The Hunger Games
series (nearly 10 million copies and counting) was elated enough
to call and offer her congratulations.
“I feel like when you said yes, the world got lifted off of my
shoulders,” Collins told the actress. That weight has now been
shifted onto Lawrence, who must personify the grit and private
vulnerability of a most beloved heroine.
“Don’t worry about Jen,” says Ross with an admiring laugh. “She’s
a very, very powerful person.”
After archery, Lawrence is due across town at the Santa Monica
College track for an hour of speed drills. Before getting into
her white Volkswagen, she turns back with a girlish grin. “Let’s
race there!” she says.
She wins.
It was Lawrence’s mother who introduced her to the Hunger Games
books last Christmas. “She did the same thing with Winter’s
Bone,” the actress recalls.
Her role in that movie involved hunting, taking punches, caring
for younger siblings, and even skinning and cooking a squirrel,
making it a bona fide audition tape for the part of Katniss.
Her performance certainly caught Gray Ross’ eye. “I just thought
she was phenomenally talented and riveting,” he says. It was
during the height of her Oscar campaign that the two met for the
first time. Ross asked the young actress how she was handling the
marathon that is an awards season. “And I just opened up and
said, ‘I feel like a rag doll,’ Lawrence recalls.
“'I have hair and makeup people coming to my house every day and
putting me in new, uncomfortable, weird dresses and expensive
shoes, and I just shutdown and raise my arms up for them to get
the dress on, and pout my lips when they need to put the lipstick
on.’ And we both started laughing, because that’s exactly what
it’s like for Katniss in the Capitol. She was a girl who’s all of
a sudden being introduced to fame. I know what that feels like to
have all this flurry around you and feel like, ‘Oh, no, I don’t
belong here.’”
From there, the two dug into rich discussions about Collins’
young-adult trilogy and the tough and damaged Katniss.
From the way Lawrence speaks about The Hunger Games, it’s as if
she too is one of those suspicious fans who don’t want to see
their favorite book cheapened in its transition to the screen: “I
told Gary, ‘I totally understand if you don’t hire me, but please
remember that after Katniss shoots a bow and kills someone, her
face cannot be badass. It has to be broken.’ It’s so tempting,
especially with a cool, big-budget franchise movie, but we have
to remember that she’s a 16-year-old girl.”
Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) and producer and former Disney
executive, Nina Jacobson, had similar concerns. “I felt very
protective of the book,” Jacobson says, “and felt there was a
version of the movie that could be made that would in fact be
sort of guilty of all of the sins of the Capitol.”
Moved by Lawrence’s passion, and killer audition, Ross offered
her the role.
And yet she hesitated. “Professionally, the answer was obviously
yes,” Lawrence remembers. But she spent the day in a state of
paralysis. A few years ago, she had gone on a routine audition,
for Bella in Twilight.
The role went to Kristen Stewart, who ever since
has had an almost feral look of discomfort about
her, appearing trapped by the suffocating nature
of fame.
The Hunger Games is not Twilight, as any Hunger
Games fane will be quick to point out. But
Lawrence understands that the reach of the
franchise is similar.
“I knew that as soon as I said yes, my life
would change. And I walked around thinking,
‘It’s not too late, I could sill go back and do
indies.’”
Unsure of what to do, Lawrence called her dad back in Kentucky,
who suggested she seek advice from Jodie Foster, her director on
The Beaver. Foster was out of the country at the time, but she
sent Lawrence an encouraging email.
“Yeah, she’s going to be completely famous,” Foster says now.
“And maybe it’s going to be like Twilight, and there’s going to
be sequels, and girls and boys are going to be screaming, and ‘Is
this what I really wanted?’ and all that.
"But look at Silence of the Lambs. Can you make a blockbuster
that has real resonance and stands for something? I think that
Hunger Games can, and if anyone is going to be able to get it
there, it’s Jennifer.”
In the end, it was Lawrence’s mother who eased her youngest
child’s anxiety. “She told me I was being a hypocrite,” says
Lawrence. “All of the times that I was doing indies and passing
on studio films, people would ask me why, and I always said, ‘I
don’t care about the budget of the movie or the size of it. I
care about the story.’
"And my mom said, ‘This is a story that you love, and you’re
thinking about saying no to it because of the size of it.
Hypocrite!’ And she was right. I love this story, and if I had
said no I would regret it every day.”
After track practice, Lawrence heads to a bench in the shade to
catch her breath. When asked whether it stung when Hunger Games
fans worried about her casting, she starts reciting what are
clearly bullet points from a pre-approved message.
“Well, that’s the great things about the books, and presumably
the movie, which is it has this great following. People feel like
they have an individual relationship with the character. And
that’s great. That’s what you want. You want people to feel like
they have...” She pauses, distracted by a blond boy running on
the field, and wonders aloud if she knows him.
“Anyhoo,” she continues, “it’s nice to know that people are
involved...” She sounds so checked out that I can’t help
interrupting her and wondering if she’s just... “Saying the right
things?” she asks, breaking into a laugh. “Yeah. Can you tell
I’ve had media training?”
“Listen, I know from the bottom of my heart that I love Katniss.
I love her,” she continues, serious this time, her face flushing.
“It’s kind of like when you have a huge crush on somebody, and
it’s almost scary because you don’t want to mess it up and have
it not be everything you hope it will be. That’s exactly what I
feel about this. I’m terrified. Is it going to be good enough? Am
I going to be good enough?”
Thrillingly, early signs point to yes.
this spring, when Lionsgate announced that the actress would
anchor The Hunger Games, the first in a series of films based on
Suzanne Collins’ wildly popular dystopian trilogy, there was a
predictable outcry from some young fans.
They feared that Lawrence, the 20-year-old who earned an Oscar
nomination for her performance in last year’s harshly beautiful
indie Winter’s Bone, was too old, too blond, too tall, too pale,
too pretty to play the part of a teenager fighting to the death
in a brutal government-ordered competition. And yet here she is
in early May at a Los Angeles archery range, with one intense
week of training left before she’s due on the North Carolina set.
And she looks every bit as fierce as fans would demand of their
Katniss Everdeen. Lawrence’s dark tresses are scraped back into a
ponytail, her skin tawny from long mornings in the sun. “I think
I just have to stay tan,” she tells me of adjusting to her new
hair. “Or I’ll look like the girl from The Ring.”
For over a month, Lawrence has been enduring a grueling training
program consisting of archery, track work, stunt drills, and
yoga. She says that her archery coach, a four-time Olympian from
Eastern Europe, spent weeks bemoaning her lack of skills.
Apparently, it was only after the woman declared her “helpless!”
that Lawrence gritted her teeth and hit the bull’s-eye. “What
happened?” her coach cried in surprise. Lawrence turned to her
and growled, her Southern accent making a rare appearance, “You
pissed me off!”
Today, Lawrence holds a large bow aloft as her eyes narrow on the
target. When her arrow thwacks into the bull’s-eye, she smiles
and – as she would do when she scored a basket for her childhood
basketball team in Louisville, KY – launches into cartwheels.
Lawrence needs to be in peak condition to embody Katniss, the 16-
year-old girl plucked from her district to battle other unlucky
children in a reality TV death match.
Gary Ross, who’s directing The Hunger Games (in theaters March
23, 2012), stressed to her trainer that while he by no means
wants her gaunt when shooting begins on the PG-13 film later this
month, she does have to portray a girl desperate for food.
(Meanwhile, costars Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, who’ll
play Katniss’ staunch District 12 allies Peeta and Gale, are busy
bulking themselves up in a weight-training regimen. “Apparently,
I’m the only one in the district who’s starving,” jokes Lawrence.)
When Lawrence officially signed on to play Katniss, some fans may
have complained, but the revered author of The Hunger Games
series (nearly 10 million copies and counting) was elated enough
to call and offer her congratulations.
“I feel like when you said yes, the world got lifted off of my
shoulders,” Collins told the actress. That weight has now been
shifted onto Lawrence, who must personify the grit and private
vulnerability of a most beloved heroine.
“Don’t worry about Jen,” says Ross with an admiring laugh. “She’s
a very, very powerful person.”
After archery, Lawrence is due across town at the Santa Monica
College track for an hour of speed drills. Before getting into
her white Volkswagen, she turns back with a girlish grin. “Let’s
race there!” she says.
She wins.
It was Lawrence’s mother who introduced her to the Hunger Games
books last Christmas. “She did the same thing with Winter’s
Bone,” the actress recalls.
Her role in that movie involved hunting, taking punches, caring
for younger siblings, and even skinning and cooking a squirrel,
making it a bona fide audition tape for the part of Katniss.
Her performance certainly caught Gray Ross’ eye. “I just thought
she was phenomenally talented and riveting,” he says. It was
during the height of her Oscar campaign that the two met for the
first time. Ross asked the young actress how she was handling the
marathon that is an awards season. “And I just opened up and
said, ‘I feel like a rag doll,’ Lawrence recalls.
“'I have hair and makeup people coming to my house every day and
putting me in new, uncomfortable, weird dresses and expensive
shoes, and I just shutdown and raise my arms up for them to get
the dress on, and pout my lips when they need to put the lipstick
on.’ And we both started laughing, because that’s exactly what
it’s like for Katniss in the Capitol. She was a girl who’s all of
a sudden being introduced to fame. I know what that feels like to
have all this flurry around you and feel like, ‘Oh, no, I don’t
belong here.’”
From there, the two dug into rich discussions about Collins’
young-adult trilogy and the tough and damaged Katniss.
From the way Lawrence speaks about The Hunger Games, it’s as if
she too is one of those suspicious fans who don’t want to see
their favorite book cheapened in its transition to the screen: “I
told Gary, ‘I totally understand if you don’t hire me, but please
remember that after Katniss shoots a bow and kills someone, her
face cannot be badass. It has to be broken.’ It’s so tempting,
especially with a cool, big-budget franchise movie, but we have
to remember that she’s a 16-year-old girl.”
Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) and producer and former Disney
executive, Nina Jacobson, had similar concerns. “I felt very
protective of the book,” Jacobson says, “and felt there was a
version of the movie that could be made that would in fact be
sort of guilty of all of the sins of the Capitol.”
Moved by Lawrence’s passion, and killer audition, Ross offered
her the role.
And yet she hesitated. “Professionally, the answer was obviously
yes,” Lawrence remembers. But she spent the day in a state of
paralysis. A few years ago, she had gone on a routine audition,
for Bella in Twilight.
The role went to Kristen Stewart, who ever since
has had an almost feral look of discomfort about
her, appearing trapped by the suffocating nature
of fame.
The Hunger Games is not Twilight, as any Hunger
Games fane will be quick to point out. But
Lawrence understands that the reach of the
franchise is similar.
“I knew that as soon as I said yes, my life
would change. And I walked around thinking,
‘It’s not too late, I could sill go back and do
indies.’”
Unsure of what to do, Lawrence called her dad back in Kentucky,
who suggested she seek advice from Jodie Foster, her director on
The Beaver. Foster was out of the country at the time, but she
sent Lawrence an encouraging email.
“Yeah, she’s going to be completely famous,” Foster says now.
“And maybe it’s going to be like Twilight, and there’s going to
be sequels, and girls and boys are going to be screaming, and ‘Is
this what I really wanted?’ and all that.
"But look at Silence of the Lambs. Can you make a blockbuster
that has real resonance and stands for something? I think that
Hunger Games can, and if anyone is going to be able to get it
there, it’s Jennifer.”
In the end, it was Lawrence’s mother who eased her youngest
child’s anxiety. “She told me I was being a hypocrite,” says
Lawrence. “All of the times that I was doing indies and passing
on studio films, people would ask me why, and I always said, ‘I
don’t care about the budget of the movie or the size of it. I
care about the story.’
"And my mom said, ‘This is a story that you love, and you’re
thinking about saying no to it because of the size of it.
Hypocrite!’ And she was right. I love this story, and if I had
said no I would regret it every day.”
- ***
After track practice, Lawrence heads to a bench in the shade to
catch her breath. When asked whether it stung when Hunger Games
fans worried about her casting, she starts reciting what are
clearly bullet points from a pre-approved message.
“Well, that’s the great things about the books, and presumably
the movie, which is it has this great following. People feel like
they have an individual relationship with the character. And
that’s great. That’s what you want. You want people to feel like
they have...” She pauses, distracted by a blond boy running on
the field, and wonders aloud if she knows him.
“Anyhoo,” she continues, “it’s nice to know that people are
involved...” She sounds so checked out that I can’t help
interrupting her and wondering if she’s just... “Saying the right
things?” she asks, breaking into a laugh. “Yeah. Can you tell
I’ve had media training?”
“Listen, I know from the bottom of my heart that I love Katniss.
I love her,” she continues, serious this time, her face flushing.
“It’s kind of like when you have a huge crush on somebody, and
it’s almost scary because you don’t want to mess it up and have
it not be everything you hope it will be. That’s exactly what I
feel about this. I’m terrified. Is it going to be good enough? Am
I going to be good enough?”
Thrillingly, early signs point to yes.
In Entertainment Weekly's May 27, 2011 issue, writer Karen Valby
interviews Jennifer Lawrence, the actress cast as Katniss
Everdeen in the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' book series,
The Hunger Games and the early preparations underway for the
production. An excerpt is below.
interviews Jennifer Lawrence, the actress cast as Katniss
Everdeen in the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' book series,
The Hunger Games and the early preparations underway for the
production. An excerpt is below.
| The Article |
| Copyright © 2007 | www.booksandwands.com | All Rights Reserved Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Warner Brothers Entertainment. No copyright infringement intended of any and all source material. No profits were made from this site. |
| The Ultimate Harry Potter Analysis Source |
| Choosing what is Right over what is Easy |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Photos by Jeff Riedel |