Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence is an Academy Award-winning American actress best known for her riveting performances in a number of critically-acclaimed films, including "Winter's Bone" (2010), "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012), "American Hustle" (2013), and "The Hunger Games" (2012-15) franchise. Born and raised in Kentucky, Lawrence was an athletic child who excelled in various different sports, like softball and field hockey. She was also an accomplished horseback rider, but had to cut back on the sport after injuring her tailbone during a ride.

In numerous interviews, Lawrence claimed how she suffered from social anxiety and hyperactivity as a young girl. As a result, the soon-to-be Hollywood actor said she always felt like an outsider amongst her childhood peers. However, she would later find that acting was a therapeutic outlet that suppressed her anxiety. Lawrence, who began acting in stage productions put on by her local church, found that all of her problems and worries disappeared once she was on stage.

Thus, throughout her adolescence, she appeared in several stage plays and musicals, thus honing her craft night after night. Although Lawrence loved acting for her church, it was a stroke of blind luck that would elevate her into the exalted world of film and TV acting. While vacationing with her parents in New York City, the then-14-year-old Lawrence was discovered by a talent scout while walking the city streets. The scout arranged for the teenage Lawrence to audition for a talent agent.

Lawrence blew the agents away with her cold reading, and they quickly signed her to a contract. Lawrence then dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles to embark on a career in film and television acting. She never earned her GED or high school diploma, instead putting all of her focus into her fledgling acting career. Lawrence's long-term career gamble paid off almost immediately. She soon started landing commercial work, and then began nabbing guest spots on TV shows like "Monk" (USA Network, 2002-09), as well as roles in films like "Garden Party" (2008) and "The Burning Plain" (2008).

Then in 2007 Lawrence joined the cast of the sitcom "The Bill Engvall Show" (TBS, 2007-09). The series ran for three seasons, before it was cancelled in September of 2009. After the cancellation of "The Bill Engvall Show" in 2009, Lawrence set her sights on a film acting career. She nabbed her breakout role a year later in 2010 with a starring turn in the independent drama "Winter's Bone." The film was a critical darling, and would go on to earn the 21-year-old Jennifer Lawrence her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Her role in "Winter's Bone" was a career high-point for Lawrence.

But as it turned out, she was only getting starred. Over the course of the next few years Lawrence starred in some of the most critically-acclaimed films of the 2010s, most notably "Silver Linings Playbook," "American Hustle," and "Joy"(2015). Lawrence was nominated for an Oscar for all three films (which were all directed by her frequent collaborator David O. Russell), and would go on to take home the gold statue for her work in "Silver Linings Playbook."

In addition to her acclaimed dramatic work, Lawrence also became a household name to fans of the blockbuster fantasy adventure franchise "The Hunger Games." The films, which premiered in 2012 and included three sequels, starred Lawrence in the role of the plucky heroine Katniss Everdeen and have been wildly successful at the box office, raking in nearly $3 billion globally as of 2019. In addition to her work in the blockbuster "The Hunger Games" franchise, Lawrence also appeared as Raven/Mystique in four of the "X-Men"-themed superhero films, including 2019's "Dark Phoenix."

"Dark Phoenix," which starred Sophie Turner as the title character, premiered in the summer of 2019. It was the first and only film Lawrence appeared in that year, though her October 2019 marriage to art dealer Cooke Maroney kept her in the gossip pages.