Jennifer Lawrence Recalls Conversation About Losing Weight Ahead of 'Hunger Games'

She said the biggest question executives had for her was her ability to lose weight.

Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence has starred in plenty of big films throughout her acting career, but her breakout role as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games trilogy changed everything.

Looking back on it now, Lawrence recalled that "the biggest conversation" for executives and people working on the film before production was about her weight.

Speaking with Viola Davis for Variety's "Actors on Actors" series, Lawrence said, "There were so many different opinions on what is this, basically this action figure for children, gonna look like. I remember the biggest conversation, of course, this was pre-#MeToo, and I'm a woman, so, it was weight, and you know, 'How much are you gonna lose?'"

She went on, "Along with me being young and growing and not able to be on a diet, because, you know, who wants to be on a diet? It was also like, I don't know if I want all of the girls who are gonna dress up as Katniss to feel like they can't because they are not a certain weight. I can't let that seep into my brain either."

Katniss quickly became a significant role model for people everywhere, and the franchise was so successful that a prequel film, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is set to come out in theaters on Nov. 17, 2023, starring Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Hunter Schafer, and more, including Davis, who will portray the character Dr. Volumnia Gaul. 

Throughout their conversation, Lawrence and Davis also talked about Davis' recent starring role in the film The Woman King.

Lawrence, having starred as the lead in an action film at a time when many didn't believe women could successfully lead these types of movies, said: "We were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead, and it just makes me so happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every single one of those beliefs and proves that it is just a lie to keep certain people out of the movies, to keep certain people in the same positions that they've always been in."

"It's just amazing to watch it happen," she concluded.