Jennifer Shrader Lawrence, better known by her stage name Jennifer Lawrence, was an American actress best known for her versatility on-screen and her friendly, uncomplicated persona off-screen. In Indian Hills, a neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, she was born on August 15, 1990. At the age of 22, for her performance in Silver Linings Playbook, she won the Academy Award for best actress (2012).
Lawrence began performing in community theatre and school performances in Louisville, Kentucky, as soon as she realized she wanted to be an actress. When she was 14 years old, she travelled with her mother to talent agencies in New York City in an effort to break into the modelling and acting fields. There was a talent scout who noticed her and offered her to try out for his show. She spent that summer appearing in supporting roles and modelling for commercials in New York. After Lawrence graduated from high school early due to her success, the family relocated to Los Angeles so she could advance her profession. Lawrence portrayed the adolescent daughter of a psychologist on the TV sitcom The Bill Engvall Show from 2007 to 2009. She soon after landed the main role in the film Winter’s Bone, which ended up becoming her big break (2010).
Lawrence received her first Academy Award nomination for best actress when she was 20 years old for her depiction of Ree, a struggling rural adolescent searching for her kidnapped criminal father in the Ozark Mountains. Lawrence gained more notoriety for her portrayal of the mutant shape-shifter Mystique in the 2011 film X-Men: First Class; she later returned to the role in the subsequent films X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), and Dark Phoenix (2019). After being chosen to play Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games (2012), the movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ wildly successful young-adult trilogy of books, she made the jump from actress to star. Lawrence portrayed a character in Katniss that shared certain traits with Ree, another tough youngster who used outdoor survival abilities to survive in perilous situations. In 2012, Lawrence also acted in the critically acclaimed movie Silver Linings Playbook, directed by David O. Russell. She portrayed Tiffany Maxwell, a young widow who meets a man dealing with mental illness, in that film (played by Bradley Cooper). She became the second youngest woman to win the Academy Award for best actress after receiving praise from critics for her work in the well-known movie (2013). Lawrence next had an appearance in Russell’s cat-and-mouse comedy American Hustle (2013) as the wife of a con artist (Christian Bale); the part garnered her an Oscar nod for best supporting actress.
