"Jennifer Lawrence"

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American film and television actress. She had lead roles in TBS's The Bill Engvall Show and in the independent films The Burning Plain and Winter's Bone, for which she received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Satellite Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. At age 20, she was the second youngest actress ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She is also known for playing Mystique in X-Men: First Class. In 2012, Lawrence achieved wide recognition starring as the heroine Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, an adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling novel of the same name. Her performance in the film garnered her notable critical praise and marked her as the highest grossing action heroine of all time. Lawrence's performances thus far have prompted Rolling Stone to define her as "the most talented young actress in America."

Lawrence was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and has two older brothers. Her parents are Karen (née Koch), who runs a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who once owned a concrete construction firm, Lawrence & Associates. She acted in local theater and, by the age of 14, had decided to pursue an acting career, persuading her parents to take her to New York City to find a talent agent. Prior to finding success in Hollywood, Lawrence attended Kammerer Middle School. She graduated from high school two years early in order to begin a career in acting. While growing up and in between acting, Lawrence served as an assistant nurse at the children's summer day camp that her mother ran.

Lawrence had never taken any drama classes/lessons for acting. She started out her acting career in the TBS comedy The Bill Engvall Show, playing the eldest daughter of Lauren Pearson. Written and created by Bill Engvall and Michael Leeson, the show is set in a Denver suburb and follows the life of 'Bill Pearson' (played by Engvall), a family counselor whose own family could use a little dose of counseling. The series went on the air in September 2007 and was canceled in 2009 after three seasons. Lawrence received the Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Performers in a TV Series for her role in the show.

Lawrence had guest-roles in the television series The Devil You Know, Cold Case, Medium, and Monk.

In 2008, she appeared in a small role in the film Garden Party as Tiff. It was directed by Jason Freeland. The same year, Lawrence appeared on the big screen in Guillermo Arriaga's film directorial debut The Burning Plain, opposite Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. Her performance in the film earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young emerging actor/actress during the Venice Film Festival in 2008.

Still in 2008, she had the lead role in another film director's debut, Lori Petty's family drama The Poker House, opposite Selma Blair and Chloë Moretz, where Lawrence starred as Agnes, a young girl victim of abuse. She appeared in the music video for the song "The Mess I Made", from the 2009 album Losing Sleep by Parachute.

Lawrence's lead role in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone, which won best picture at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, is generally cited as a breakout performance for her. She portrays Ree Dolly, a seventeen-year-old in the Ozark Mountains who cares for her mentally ill mother and her younger brother and sister. Ree then discovers that her father put their house and land up as a bond for a court appearance before he disappeared, and the family now faces eviction. The performance was highly acclaimed by film critics. David Denby, writing in The New Yorker, said "the movie would be unimaginable with anyone less charismatic playing Ree." Peter Travers from the Rolling Stone also spoke highly of her and noted that "her performance is more than acting, it's a gathering storm. Lawrence's eyes are a roadmap to what's tearing Ree apart". Receiving accolades for her performance, Lawrence was awarded the National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress on January 25, 2011, becoming the second-youngest actress to date to be nominated for the category, and also accrued nominations from the Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Satellite Awards among others.

Lawrence had a role in The Beaver, a dark comedy starring Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson that was filmed in 2009, but which spent an extended period of time stalled due to controversies surrounding Gibson. It was released on May 6, 2011. Lawrence co-starred in the independent film Like Crazy, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and received a wider release by Paramount Pictures.

On June 18, 2011, it was announced that Lawrence was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In June 2011, she starred as shape-shifting villain Mystique in X-Men: First Class, a prequel to the rest of the X-Men film series and will be reprising this role in the sequel. Lawrence's Mystique is a younger version of the character played by Rebecca Romijn in earlier X-Men films.

She is also set to star alongside Elisabeth Shue in Mark Tonderai's thriller House at the End of the Street, which completed filming in 2010 and is in post-production.

Lawrence was cast in David O. Russell's The Silver Linings Playbook, opposite Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. She was originally cast to play "O" in the film Savages directed by Oliver Stone, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.

In 2012, Lawrence replaced Angelina Jolie in Susanne Bier's period thriller, The Falling, based on the novel Serena by Ron Rash. She will be playing the role of Serena who learns that she can never bear her husband children and is set out to murder the woman who bore her husband an illegitimate son before their marriage.

In March 2011, Lawrence was offered the part of Katniss Everdeen in the film The Hunger Games, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins. Despite being a fan of the books, Lawrence took three days to accept the role because she was initially intimidated by the size of the movie and what it may mean for her fame. She underwent extensive training to get in shape for the role, including stunt training, archery, rock and tree climbing, combat, running, parkour, pilates, and yoga. The film was released on March 23, 2012, and set the record for the third-largest opening weekend of all time, making a record-breaking $152.5 million in three days for a non-sequel film.

The fact that The Hunger Games emerged as a big box office hit with a female lead represents a dramatic shift for the action film genre. Historically, among the "top 200 worldwide box-office hits ever ($350 million and up), not one has been built around a female action star" and for the first time ever, Lawrence contradicts that. She is currently the highest grossing action heroine of all time.

Though the film generally received positive reviews, Lawrence's strong portrayal of Katniss Everdeen was the most highly praised with Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter saying Lawrence embodies Katniss, "just as one might imagine her from the novel" and "anchors" the whole film "with impressive gravity and presence", ultimately calling her "the ideal screen actress". Kenneth Turan from the Los Angeles Times stated that Lawrence is the "best possible performer as Katniss and is the key factor in making 'Hunger Games' an involving popular entertainment with strong narrative drive that holds our attention". Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert also agreed that "Lawrence is strong and convincing in the central role".

Lawrence will start filming the film adaptation of the second novel in the The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire, this summer, which is scheduled to be released on November 23, 2013.

Lawrence lived in New York City for the first few years of her career, but now resides in Santa Monica, California. She likes to paint, knit sweaters and scarves, surf, and play the guitar. She has been dating English actor Nicholas Hoult since 2011.

source :http://en.wikipedia.org