Jennifer Lawrence says she was pressured to lose weight for ‘The Hunger Games’

Jennifer Lawrence has revealed she was pressured to lose weight when she was cast in The Hunger Games.

The actor, who had her breakthrough role as Katniss Everdeen in the action film franchise, recalled that she was encouraged to slim down for the role during a conversation with Viola Davis for Variety’s Actors On Actors series.

“In Hunger Games, it was an awesome responsibility,” Lawrence said. “Those books were huge, and I knew that the audience was children.

“And there were so many different opinions on what is this basically action figure for children going to look like? I remember the biggest conversation, of course, this was pre-MeToo and I’m a woman, so it was weight. How much weight are you going to lose?”

She added: “Along with me being young and growing and not able to be on a diet, because who wants to be on a diet? I was also like, I don’t know if I want all of the girls who are going to dress up as Katniss to feel like they can’t because they’re not a certain weight. I can’t let that seep into my brain either.”

Lawrence previously told Elle (via Reuters) in 2012 she would never diet for a role. “I’m never going to starve myself for a part,” she said at the time. “I don’t want little girls to be like, ‘Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I’m going to skip dinner.’

“That’s something I was really conscious of during training… I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong, not thin and underfed.”

During the press tour for 2018 thriller Red Sparrow however, Lawrence said it was the first time she decided to be “disciplined” about her weight for a role.

“I’ve always wondered what it would take to get me to really diet, to really be hungry, because I’ve never done it for a movie,” Lawrence told Vanity Fair. “For Hunger Games, they told me to lose weight, and then I discovered Jack In The Box. Red Sparrow was the first time that I was really hungry, and disciplined.

“I can’t be in character as an ex-ballerina and not feel like an ex-ballerina.”

A prequel to The Hunger Games, titled The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, is set to be released in cinemas in November next year.

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