Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American actress. The films she has acted in have grossed over $6 billion worldwide, and she was the world's highest-paid actress in 2015 and 2016. Lawrence appeared in Time's 100 most influential people in the world list in 2013 and in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2014 and 2016.
During her childhood, Lawrence performed in church plays and school musicals. At age 14, she was spotted by a talent scout while vacationing in New York City with her family. Lawrence then moved to Los Angeles and began her acting career by playing guest roles in television shows. Her first major role came as a main cast member on the sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007–2009). Lawrence made her film debut in a supporting role in the drama Garden Party (2008), and had her breakthrough playing a poverty-stricken teenager in the independent drama Winter's Bone (2010). Her career progressed with her starring roles as the mutant Mystique in the X-Men film series (2011–2019) and Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015). The latter established her as the highest-grossing action heroine of all time.
Lawrence went on to earn accolades for her collaborations with director David O. Russell. Her performance as a depressed young widow in the romance film Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the second-youngest winner of the award. She subsequently won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for playing a troubled wife in the black comedy American Hustle (2013). Lawrence also received Golden Globe Awards for both of these films, and for portraying Joy Mangano in the biopic Joy (2015). She has since starred in the science fiction romance Passengers (2016), the psychological horror film Mother! (2017), and the spy thriller Red Sparrow (2018).
Lawrence is an outspoken feminist and has advocated for Planned Parenthood. In 2015, she founded the Jennifer Lawrence Foundation, which has advocated for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Special Olympics. She formed the production company Excellent Cadaver in 2018.
Early life
Career
2006–2010: Career beginnings and breakthrough
Lawrence began her acting career with a minor role in the unsold, unaired TV pilot Company Town (2006). She followed it with guest roles in several television shows, including Monk (2006) and Medium (2007).These parts led to her being cast as a series regular on the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show, in which she played Lauren, the rebellious teenage daughter of a family living in suburban Louisville, Colorado. The series premiered in 2007 and ran for three seasons. Tom Shales of The Washington Post considered her a scene stealer in her part, and David Hinckley of the New York Daily News wrote that she was successful in "deliver[ing] the perpetual exasperation of teenage girls". Lawrence won a Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Performer in a TV Series for the role in 2009.
Lawrence made her film debut in the 2008 drama film Garden Party, in which she played a troubled teenager named Tiff. She then appeared in director Guillermo Arriaga's feature film debut The Burning Plain (2008), a drama narrated in a hyperlink format. She was cast as the teenage daughter of Kim Basinger's character who discovers her mother's extramarital affair—a role she shared with Charlize Theron; both actresses portrayed the role at different stages of the character's life. Mark Feeney for The Boston Globe thought of Lawrence's performance as "a thankless task", but Derek Elley from Variety praised her as the production's prime asset, writing that she "plumbs fresher depths" into the film. Her performance earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Emerging Actress at the Venice Film Festival. Also that year, she appeared in the music video for the song "The Mess I Made" by Parachute. The following year, she starred in Lori Petty's drama The Poker House as the oldest of three sisters living with a drug-abusing mother. Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter thought that Lawrence "has a touching poise on camera that conveys the resilience of children", and her role in The Poker House won an Outstanding Performance award from the Los Angeles Film Festival.
Lawrence's breakthrough role came in the small-scale drama Winter's Bone (2010), based on Daniel Woodrell's novel of the same name. In Debra Granik's independent feature, she portrayed Ree Dolly, a poverty-stricken teenager in the Ozark Mountains who cares for her mentally ill mother and younger siblings while searching for her missing father. Lawrence traveled to the Ozarks a week before filming began to live with the family on whom the story was based, and in preparation, she learned to fight, skin squirrels, and chop wood. David Denby of The New Yorker said the film "would be unimaginable with anyone less charismatic", and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that "her performance is more than acting, it's a gathering storm. Lawrence's eyes are a roadmap to what's tearing Ree apart." The production won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The actress was awarded the National Board of Review Award for Breakthrough Performance, and with her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, she became the second youngest person to be nominated in the category.
2011–2013: Film series and awards success
In 2011, Lawrence took on a supporting role in Like Crazy, a romantic drama about long-distance relationships, starring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times considered the film to be an "intensely wrought and immensely satisfying love story" and credited all three performers for "making their [characters'] yearning palpable". She then appeared in Jodie Foster's black comedy The Beaver alongside Foster and Mel Gibson. Filmed in 2009, the production was delayed due to controversy concerning Gibson, and earned less than half of its $21 million budget.
After her dramatic role in Winter's Bone, Lawrence looked for something less serious, and found it with her first high-profile release—Matthew Vaughn's superhero film X-Men: First Class (2011)—a prequel to the X-Men film series. She portrayed the shapeshifting mutant Mystique, a role played by Rebecca Romijn in the earlier films. Vaughn cast Lawrence, as he thought that she would be able to portray the weakness and strength involved in the character's transformation. For the part, Lawrence lost weight and practiced yoga. For Mystique's blue form, she had to undergo eight hours of makeup, as Romijn had done on the other films. She was intimidated in the role as she admired Romijn. Writing for USA Today, Claudia Puig considered the film to be a "classy re-boot" of the film series, and believed that her "high-spirited performance" empowered the film. With worldwide earnings of $350 million, X-Men: First Class became Lawrence's highest-grossing film at that point.
In 2012 she played Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, an adaptation of the first book in author Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the series tells the story of the teenage heroine Everdeen as she joins rebel forces against a totalitarian government after winning a brutal televised annual event. Despite being an admirer of the books, Lawrence was initially hesitant to accept the part, because of the grand scale of the film. She agreed to the project after her mother convinced her to take the part. She practiced yoga, archery, rock and tree climbing, and hand-to-hand combat techniques for the role. While training for the part, she injured herself running into a wall. The film received generally positive reviews, and Lawrence's portrayal of Everdeen was particularly praised.Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter called her an "ideal screen actress", adding that she embodies the Everdeen of the novel, and believed that she anchored the film "with impressive gravity and presence". Roger Ebert agreed that she was "strong and convincing in the central role". With worldwide revenues of over $690 million,The Hunger Games became a top-grossing film featuring a female lead, making Lawrence the highest-grossing action heroine of all time. The success of the film established her as a star.
Later in 2012, Lawrence played Tiffany Maxwell, a young widow with borderline personality disorder, in David O. Russell's romance movie Silver Linings Playbook. The film was an adaptation of Matthew Quick's novel of the same name. It follows her character finding companionship with Pat Solitano Jr. (played by Bradley Cooper), a man with bipolar disorder. The actress was drawn to her character's complex personality: "She didn't really fit any basic kind of character profile. Somebody who is very forceful and bullheaded is normally very insecure, but she isn't". While Russell initially considered Lawrence to be too young for the part, she convinced him to hire her via a Skype audition. The actress found herself challenged by Russell's spontaneity as a director, and described working on the project as the "best experience of my life". Richard Corliss of Time wrote: "Just 21 when the movie was shot, Lawrence is that rare young actress who plays, who is, grown-up. Sullen and sultry, she lends a mature intelligence to any role." Peter Travers believed that Lawrence "is some kind of miracle. She's rude, dirty, funny, foulmouthed, sloppy, sexy, vibrant, and vulnerable, sometimes all in the same scene, even in the same breath." She won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, becoming—at age 22—the second youngest Best Actress winner. Her final film of the year was alongside Max Thieriot and Elisabeth Shue in Mark Tonderai's critically panned thriller House at the End of the Street.
In January 2013, Lawrence hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live, with musical guest The Lumineers. The Devil You Know, a small-scale production that Lawrence had filmed for in 2005, was her first release of 2013. She then reprised the role of Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second installment in the Hunger Games film series. While performing the film's underwater stunts, she suffered from an ear infection that resulted in a brief loss of hearing. With box office earnings of $865 million, the film remains her highest-grossing release. Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice believed that Lawrence's portrayal of Everdeen made her an ideal role model, and wrote that "there's no sanctimony or pretense of false modesty in the way Lawrence plays her". She took on a supporting role in Russell's ensemble crime drama American Hustle (2013) as Rosalyn Rosenfeld, the neurotic wife of con man Irving Rosenfeld (portrayed by Christian Bale). Inspired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Abscam sting operation, the film is set against the backdrop of political corruption in 1970s New Jersey.Lawrence did little research for the part, and based her performance on knowledge of the era from the films and television shows she had seen. Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent praised her as "funny and acerbic", especially for an improvised scene in which she aggressively kisses her husband's mistress (played by Amy Adams) on the lips. Lawrence's performance won her the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress, in addition to a third Academy Award nomination, her first in the supporting category.
2014–present: Established actress
Lawrence played Serena Pemberton in Susanne Bier's depression-era drama Serena (2014), based on the novel of the same name by Ron Rash. In the film, she and her husband George (portrayed by Bradley Cooper) become involved in criminal activities after realizing that they cannot bear children. The project was filmed in 2012, and was released in 2014 to poor reviews. Lawrence then reprised the role of Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future Past, which served as a sequel to both X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men: First Class (2011). The film received positive reviews and grossed $748.1 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film in the X-Men series to that point. Justin Chang of Variety praised her look in the film but thought that she had little to do but "glower, snarl and let the f/x artists do their thing". Lawrence's next two releases were in the final parts of The Hunger Games film series, Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014) and Part 2 (2015). For the musical score of the former film, she sang the song "The Hanging Tree", which charted on multiple international singles charts. In a review of the final film in the series, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times drew similarities between her rise to stardom and Everdeen's journey as a rebel leader, writing: "Lawrence now inhabits the role as effortlessly as breathing, partly because, like all great stars, she seems to be playing a version of her 'real' self". Both films earned more than $650 million worldwide.
Lawrence worked with Russell for the third time in the biopic Joy (2015), in which she plays the eponymous character, a troubled single mother who becomes a successful businessperson after inventing the Miracle Mop. During production in Boston, the press reported on a disagreement between Russell and Lawrence that resulted in a "screaming match". She said that her friendship with Russell made it easier for them to disagree, because people fight when they really love each other. The film was not as well received as their previous collaborations, but her performance was praised. Richard Roeper called it "a wonderfully layered performance that carries the film through its rough spots and sometime dubious detours" that was her best since Winter's Bone. She won a third Golden Globe Award, and was nominated for another Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the youngest person to accrue four Oscar nominations. Lawrence began 2016 by providing the narration for A Beautiful Planet, a documentary film that explores Earth from the International Space Station. She played Mystique for the third time in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016). The film received mixed reviews, with a consensus that it was overfilled with action that detracted from the story's themes and cast's performances. Helen O'Hara from Empire considered the film to be a letdown from the previous installments of the series, and criticized the actress for making her character too grim. Despite this, she was rewarded Favorite Movie Actress at the 43rd People's Choice Awards.
Lawrence was paid $20 million for playing Aurora Lane in the science fiction film Passengers (2016), and she received top-billing over co-star Chris Pratt. It features Pratt and her as two people who wake up 90 years too soon from an induced hibernation on a spaceship bound for a new planet. Lawrence says that she felt nervous performing her first sex scene and kissing a married man (Pratt) on screen; she drank alcohol to prepare herself for filming. Critical reaction was mixed, but Lawrence defended the film by calling it a "tainted, complicated love story". Darren Aronofsky's psychological horror film Mother! was Lawrence's sole release of 2017. She starred as a young wife who experiences trauma when her home is invaded by unexpected guests. Lawrence spent three months rehearsing the film in a warehouse in Brooklyn, despite her reluctance to rehearsals in her previous assignments. The intense role proved difficult for her to film; she was put on supplemental oxygen when she hyperventilated one day, and she also dislocated a rib. Mother! polarized viewers and prompted mass walkouts. The film was better received by critics; Walter Addiego of the San Francisco Chronicle labelled it "assaultive" and a "deliberate test of audience endurance", and credited Lawrence for "never allow[ing] herself to be reduced simply to a howling victim".
The following year, Lawrence starred as Dominika Egorova, a Russian spy who makes contact with a mysterious CIA agent (played by Joel Edgerton), in Francis Lawrence's espionage thriller Red Sparrow, based on Jason Matthews' novel of the same name. She learned to speak in a Russian accent and undertook ballet training for four months. Lawrence was challenged by the sexuality in her role, but has said that performing the nude scenes made her feel empowered. IndieWire's Eric Kohn disliked the film's denouement, but praised the work of Lawrence and Charlotte Rampling, stating that "the considerable talent on display is [the film's constant saving grace." A year later, Lawrence made her fourth and final appearance as Mystique, in Dark Phoenix, which received poor reviews and emerged as a box-office bomb.
Upcoming projects
Lawrence will next star in and produce Red, White and Water, an independent drama directed by Lila Neugebauer, which will be distributed by A24. She will team with filmmaker Adam McKay for the Netflix comedy film Don't Look Up co-starring an ensemble cast, and portray the mafia informant Arlyne Brickman in Paolo Sorrentino's film adaptation of Teresa Carpenter's book Mob Girl. Lawrence will additionally produce a film adaptation of Hannah Kent's novel Burial Rites about the last woman to be executed for murder in Iceland.
Jennifer Lawrence Personal life
While filming X-Men: First Class in 2010, Lawrence began a romantic relationship with her co-star Nicholas Hoult. The couple broke up around the time they wrapped X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014. Also that year, she was one of the victims of the iCloud leaks of celebrity photos when dozens of self-photographed nude pictures of her were leaked online. Lawrence emphasized that the images were never meant to go public; she called the leak a "sex crime" and a "sexual violation". She added that viewers of the images should be ashamed of their part in a sexual offense. The actress later stated that her pictures were intended for Hoult, and that unlike other victims of the hack, she did not plan to sue Apple Inc.
In September 2016, she began dating director Darren Aronofsky, whom she met during the filming of Mother!. The couple split in November 2017. In 2018, she began dating Cooke Maroney, an art gallery director, and they became engaged in February 2019. In October 2019, she married Maroney in Rhode Island. As of May 2019, she resides in Lower Manhattan, New York City and Beverly Hills, California.
Film
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2008 | Garden Party | Tiffany "Tiff" | |
2008 | The Poker House | Agnes | |
2008 | The Burning Plain | Mariana | |
2010 | Winter's Bone | Ree Dolly | |
2011 | Like Crazy | Sam | |
2011 | The Beaver | Norah | |
2011 | X-Men: First Class | Raven Darkhölme / Mystique | |
2012 | The Hunger Games | Katniss Everdeen | |
2012 | Silver Linings Playbook | Tiffany Maxwell | |
2012 | House at the End of the Street | Elissa Cassidy | |
2013 | The Devil You Know | Young Zoe Hughes | |
2013 | The Hunger Games: Catching Fire | Katniss Everdeen | |
2013 | American Hustle | Rosalyn Rosenfeld | |
2014 | X-Men: Days of Future Past | Raven Darkhölme / Mystique | |
2014 | Serena | Serena Pemberton | |
2014 | The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 | Katniss Everdeen | |
2015 | Dior and I | Herself | Documentary |
2015 | The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 | Katniss Everdeen | |
2015 | Joy | Joy Mangano | |
2016 | A Beautiful Planet | Narrator | Documentary |
2016 | X-Men: Apocalypse | Raven Darkhölme / Mystique | |
2016 | Passengers | Aurora Lane | |
2017 | Mother! | Mother | |
2018 | Red Sparrow | Dominika Egorova | |
2019 | Dark Phoenix | Raven Darkhölme / Mystique | |
TBA | Red, White and Water | TBA | Post-production; also producer |
Television
Year(s) | Title | Role(s) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2006 | Monk | Mascot | Episode: "Mr. Monk and the Big Game" |
2007 | Cold Case | Abby Bradford | Episode: "A Dollar, a Dream" |
2007–2008 | Medium | Young Allison / Claire Chase | 2 episodes |
2007–2009 | The Bill Engvall Show | Lauren Pearson | Main role |
2013 | Saturday Night Live | Herself (host) | Episode: "Jennifer Lawrence/The Lumineers" |
2017 | Jimmy Kimmel Live! | Herself (host) | Episode: "November 2, 2017" |
Music videos
Year | Title | Artist | Role | |
---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | "The Mess I Made" | Parachute | Young woman |