- Born
- Birth nameJennifer Shrader Lawrence
- Nicknames
- Jen
- J. Law
- Nitro
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwide, Jennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar.
Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born August 15, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Karen (Koch), who manages a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who works in construction. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine, and has English, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Her career began when she traveled to Manhattan at the age of fourteen after dropping out of the 8th grade. After conducting her first cold read, agents told her mother that "it was the best cold read by a 14-year-old they had ever heard," and tried to convince her stage mother that she needed to spend the summer in Manhattan. After leaving the agency, Jennifer was spotted by an agent in the midst of shooting an H&M ad and asked to take her picture. The next day, that agent followed up with her and invited her to the studio for a cold-read audition. Again, the agents were highly impressed and strongly urged her mother to allow her to spend the summer in New York City. As fate would have it, she did and subsequently appeared in commercials such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" and played a role in the movie The Devil You Know (2013).
Shortly thereafter, her career forced her and her family to move to Los Angeles, where she was cast in the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007), and in smaller movies such as The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2008).
Her big break came when she played Ree in Winter's Bone (2010), which landed her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Shortly thereafter, she secured the role of Mystique in franchise reboot X-Men: First Class (2011), which went on to be a hit in Summer 2011. Around this time, Lawrence scored the role of a lifetime when she was cast as Katniss Everdeen in the big-screen adaptation of literary sensation The Hunger Games (2012). The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies ever, with over $407 million at the US box office, and instantly propelled Lawrence to the A-list among young actors and actresses. Three Hunger Games sequels were released in each consecutive November: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), with Lawrence reprising her role.
In 2012, the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress, among other accolades, making her the youngest person ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and the second-youngest Best Actress winner.
She starred in David O. Russell's popular drama-comedy American Hustle (2013), as Roselyn Rosenfield, and teamed with the director again to play inventor Joy Mangano in another family comedy, Joy (2015), for which she earned Oscar nominations for both roles (Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively).- IMDb Mini Biography By: Ben Lawrence
- SpouseCooke Maroney(October 19, 2019 - present) (1 child)
- ChildrenCy Maroney
- ParentsKaren Lawrence (Koch)Gary Lawrence
- RelativesBen Lawrence(Sibling)Blaine Lawrence(Sibling)
- Slightly husky voice
- Witty sense of humor
- By age 23 she became the youngest actress to be nominated for three Oscars, including two of them for the leading role, one of which she won.
- She's a diehard fan of Jeff Bridges, and got the chance to meet him at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con. She approached him, not realizing he was in the middle of an interview with Entertainment Tonight (1981) and hurried away. He noticed and immediately called her back. The reporter then handed a star-struck Lawrence the microphone and invited her to take over the interview.
- Her love of Cool Ranch Doritos caused her to stain several dresses while on the set of American Hustle (2013), nearly ruining them in the process. The wardrobe department solved this problem by creating a number of identical dresses for her to use throughout the production so she would always have a clean one to wear.
- For her role in Winter's Bone (2010), she learned to skin squirrels, chop wood, and fight.
- For her role as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games (2012), she worked out twice a day and practiced archery.
- [on auditions and meetings]: The miserable ones are the ones where all the girls auditioning are in the same room. There's no talking in those rooms. I've tried.
Yesterday, I had to do an interview. I was in a horrible mood. I couldn't think of basic words. I could see my publicist in the background, mouthing things to say. They want you to be likable all the time, and I'm just not. - I'm excited to be seen as sexy. But not slutty.
- Where are the Robert Redfords and Paul Newmans of my age group? I love James Franco, but where's the next James Franco? Where are the hunks who can act?
- There are actresses who build themselves, and then there are actresses who are built by others. I want to build myself.
- ... I have this feeling of protectiveness over characters I want to play. I worry about them - if someone else gets the part, I'm afraid they won't do it right; they will make the character a victim or they will make her a villain or they will just get it wrong somehow.
... When I get like that, anything is possible.
- Don't Look Up (2021) - $25,000,000 (includes back-end)
- Red Sparrow (2018) - $15,000,000
- Mother! (2017) - $15,000,000
- Passengers (2016) - $20,000,000
- X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - $8,000,000
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