Jennifer Lawrence Discusses the "Vulnerability" of Katniss in The Hunger Games; Plus Three Preview Clips Released
Posted 03.21.12 by Ryan
At 21, Jennifer Lawrence has already received an Academy Award nomination (for Winter's Bone) and appeared in a blockbuster comic book movie (X-Men: First Class), but almost nothing will prepare her for the likely loss of her anonymity after the release of The Hunger Games later this week. The adaptation of Suzanne Collins best-selling novel has already sold more advance tickets than any other non-sequel, so the possibility of global fame is not lost on Lawrence, who revealed at a press roundtable attended by HitFix that she considered every angle before accepting the role of Katniss Everdeen.
I was in England and I was walking around...And I was going into coffee shops and I was going in everywhere and then I just kept thinking like, a year from now I'll be in here and people will be taking pictures of me with their phones, and that'll suck. I've just spent like the last months just kind of enjoying every last thing of being semi-normal. I went to Times Square [in] New York. I've like left the house in sweatpants looking like crap, only it's too late...[they've] already got pictures of that.
[Taking on the role] did give me pause, because it was scary, but there was nobody I could really talk to, because it was kind of like one of those things that... nobody really knows what you want other than you. So there was nothing anybody could really say. It was really just something I had to work out with myself...[During] the three days that I gave myself before I said yes [I] was just thinking through every single — combing through every doubt. So that, when I was here and when people were taking my picture and people were screaming and following me or whatever is going to happen, I [would know] that I thought it through and I said yes without a doubt in my mind. And I signed on, and I haven't doubted or second guessed myself since.
If fame will leave Lawrence vulnerable, it's an emotion that the actress admit she has already tapped into to play Katniss.
I mean, that's the beautiful thing about [Katniss] in the books and in the script. It was important to keep her vulnerable. I didn't want anybody at any point... in watching her in the arena think that she couldn't die. Because I don't think that there was one moment while she was in the arena that she thought she wasn't going to die...You know, she's a young girl that's in this position. She's not a Laura Croft or a James Bond who's done this a million times and knows he's going to survive. She doesn't.
That vulnerability is on display in the movie's first clip, when Katniss says goodbye to Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) before she is taken to the Games.
Lionsgate has also released two more preview clips from the movie, both of which take place later in the movie, after Katniss has arrived in the Capitol. In the second clip, Peeta Mallark (Josh Hutcherson) is interviewed by the HUnger Games' host Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci) reveals his crush on Katniss.
The third clip focuses on antagonist President Snow (Donald Sutherland), who offers a lesson about hope to Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley).
The Hunger Games cast also includes Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, Isabelle Fuhrman as Clove, Jack Quaid as Marvel, Jacqueline Emerson as Foxface, Dayo Okeniyi as Thresh, Leven Rambin as Glimmer, Alexander Ludwig as Cato, Amandla Stenberg as Rue, and Paula Malcomson as the mother to Katniss and Primrose. It was adapted by Collins and director Gary Ross.
Next Showing: The Hunger Games opens Friday