Jennifer Lawrence was interviewed by Stylist UK to talk The Hunger Games.



You are aware of how big The Hunger Games films are going to be, aren’t you?
Completely. I’d read all three books and loved them; when I heard there was going to be a movie I was like, “Oh, great. Another great book about to be ruined by a film franchise.” I was so against it. In my mind, I went into the initial meeting with the director [Seabiscuit’s Gary Ross] just to tell him off. Everything I had prepared to bring up – the things that were so important about why making a movie of this book wouldn’t work – he agreed. He was a fan of the books; we all are, even the producers. It’s being made by fans. We didn’t want to change anything. We were like geeks – it was really quite weird.
It’s a physical role; the training sounds intense…
I never felt fully done. We had just six weeks to get me to the point where I looked like I knew what I was doing. I can’t actually climb a tree with my fingers, or run a log crossing a creek. We didn’t really pay attention to the weight aspect of it but I was packing food in all hours of the day. By the time we started filming I needed all that training just to be able to get through the days. Outside with the arena scenes, we could only shoot when it was sunlight, so it was a relatively easy 12-13 hours. But that was before we got inside for ‘The Capitol’ [a modernist city] scenes; the hours got very long.
People tend not to realise that about acting…
About how unglamorous this job is? Yeah, it’s a big misconception. During the movie I just finished filming at the end of last year [The Silver Linings Playbook – a comedy due for UK release in early 2013], I was working a 21-hour day. You go into a hysterical state where you get a bit crazy; everyone on the crew is that way. I don’t know what kind of acting results you get from that.

Do you give yourself a bit of a break between each project?
I try to. I only had two weeks off between The Hunger Games and The Silver Linings Playbook. I slept for 15 hours every day. I had to turn down one movie that I loved because I wasn’t going to get any break at all. Emotionally, you’re going through so much you wouldn’t normally go through everyday and physically, the hours are really demanding.
Are you thankful for The Bill Engvall Show for giving you the financial independence to turn down roles you weren’t interested in?
[Taking that show] was one of the best decisions I ever made. Even indie actors do a studio every once in a while because it means you can still go back and do as many indies as you want afterwards. I don’t think at 16 I really had the mindset of, ‘If I do that then I’ll be able to do this’, I just think it happened that way; but, yes, that show meant I could afford to turn down the crap movies and do what I loved.
So the quality of the script is important to you?
Yes. Sometimes I watch films that I can’t believe got made. Especially because I read scripts that are truly incredible, that will never get made. I don’t know who is behind those decisions. It’s like you just have to doodle something on a page about the underdog who finally gets the girl and the film gets made.
Ree in Winter’s Bone is quite similar to Katniss in that they both feel a sense of responsibility for their younger siblings. Can you relate to them?
I do have some kind of gravitational pull towards young characters with more responsibility than they should have. Jodie Foster told me something interesting when we were filming The Beaver. She said, “I look back at my career when I was younger and can connect what I was going through at the time with the characters I was playing. I see the similarities in them reflecting on my life.” It made me think, ‘Why am I choosing to play these characters?’ I’m the youngest in a family where I didn’t have to take responsibility for much. Maybe it was because I used to be a babysitter? I guess I like caring for kids.