Jennifer Lawrence Nearly Rejected ‘The Hunger Games’ Until Her Mom Called Her a ‘Hypocrite’
Though Jennifer Lawrence had a promising career prior to being cast as Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games franchise changed her life forever. Because she led the multimillion-dollar film franchise, she became a household name practically overnight and gained more fans than she knew what to do with. But, Lawrence almost turned down the part.
Jennifer Lawrence nearly turned down her part in ‘The Hunger Games’
Prior to booking her role in The Hunger Games, Lawrence built up a reputation for herself as the darling of independent films. With the exception of her involvement in the X-Men franchise, Lawrence typically went for films with considerably lower budgets and worked with indie filmmakers. Lawrence always chose films because of the story rather than the studio they were attached to it or the amount of money they could make her.
So, when the role of Katniss was presented to her, Lawrence nearly turned it down. She felt that The Hunger Games would be too big of a film for her to be involved in and was pretty set on passing on the part. But, luckily, her mom managed to talk some sense into her. In an interview with USA Today, Lawrence told the story about how her mom made her realize that her reasoning for turning down the role was inherently flawed.
“She was like, ‘You’re being a hypocrite because you always say you don’t care about the size of the movies,'” Lawrence revealed about the conversation she had with her mother. “Because when I was doing indies, everybody was always like, ‘Why don’t you ever do a studio?’ I’d say, ‘Because I don’t care about the size of the movie. I care about the story.’ And my mom was like, ‘Now you have a story you like, and you’re not going to do it because of the size,'” The Hunger Games star revealed.
The Oscar winner was afraid of how the movies would impact her
It turns out that the size of The Hunger Games wasn’t the only reason that Lawrence was hesitant to accept the part of Katniss. She was also afraid of how the films would ultimately change her life. “The truth was, in the bottom of my heart, I wanted to do it, the Winter’s Bone star shared. “I wanted to play this character. I was scared of the aftermath, but you can’t say no to things because you’re scared. You just have to go for it.”
Lawrence is grateful that her mom convinced her to join the cast of ‘The Hunger Games’
Of course, Lawrence eventually did join the cast of The Hunger Games. And while the four films did end up changing her life, the actor has stated that they changed it for the better. In an interview with BBC Radio 1, Lawrence shared that she was very grateful to her mom for convincing her to join the film.
“Those films changed my life and the best way possible,” Lawrence stated. “And I remember thinking OK (because Twilight had come out we had kind of seen these YA novels and what that really means) and I was like ‘OK there will come times where you regret this, but you love this character. You love this movie. And I have to say I’ve never regretted one day of it.”
