With her hilarious candor and the mega success of the The Hunger Games movies, Jennifer Lawrence is fast becoming the face of a new breed of American sweetheart. We celebrate her most memorable moments so far.
In one of the most iconic moments of recent film history, Jennifer Lawrence rides into the Capitol and truly becomes Katniss Everdeen, “the girl on fire.” The moment also marks the first time Katniss opens herself, albeit in a small way at first, to Peeta (played by Josh Hutcherson).
In a role that racked up major awards for Lawrence, she kills it as Silver Linings Playbook‘s Tiffany — a woman who has lost her husband (and maybe a little bit of her mind in the process) and befriends her bipolar neighbor Pat, who is played by Bradley Cooper. In the diner scene, Tiffany loses her cool when Pat implies she is crazier than he is, yelling at him, “I opened up to you and you judged me!”
For American Hustle, Lawrence landed in another movie with Bradley Cooper — only this time he’s not her love interest. Rather, the overweight, comb over-wearing con artist character played by Christian Bale is who her character Rosalyn makes out with. In this scene, Bale’s character, Irving Rosenfeld, laments that she is the “Picasso of passive-aggressive karate.”
Just when Katniss starts to forget what she’s fighting for and feels crushed under the thumb of the Capitol, her fashion designer Cinna surprises her with a fiery tribute to her home district. President Snow certainly wasn’t a fan, but the dramatic moment propelled the rebellion forward.
In the movie that kick-started her career, Lawrence stars as a rural Ozarks teen trying to find her father in Winter’s Bone. Her character, 17-year-old Ree Dolly, adopts the role of caretaker of her siblings and mentally ill mother when her meth-manufacturing dad goes missing. But when the family is in danger of eviction, she goes on a journey to find her father with gritty, gut-wrenching results.
They practiced, they fought, they fell in love (though neither would admit it at that point) — and then the day Lawrence’s character Tiffany and Cooper’s character Pat have been waiting on finally arrives: the dance competition. In one of Lawrence’s most memorable moments, she and Cooper shimmy and sway their way to the score of 5 they need in Silver Linings Playbook.
How bada** is Katniss in this The Hunger Games scene? When she is sent in to be scrutinized before the actual Games, the archer makes a rare misstep and misses her first mark. Afterward, she has trouble getting anyone’s attention — until, that is, she looses an arrow in their direction.
Want to know a fun fact? For her role in X-Men: First Class as Mystique, Lawrence wore full body prosthetics to achieve her unique mutant look — which she defaulted to often after declaring herself “mutant and proud.” Happily, she won’t have to slide back into the uncomfortable prosthetics for X-Men: Days of Future Past out later this year. Instead, she’ll be wearing a special modified suit.
It was the split-second decision that saved both of their lives and spurred a crucial change in their fate — the moment in The Hunger Games when Katniss proposes she and Peeta take control away from the Capitol by eating deadly Nightlock berries together.
Although she wasn’t the lead in 2011’s The Beaver, Jennifer Lawrence’s character Norah ultimately helps the main players realize the importance of family — particularly in the case of her classmate Porter, who has been struggling to accept his dad’s (Mel Gibson) alternate identity of a beaver hand puppet.
What a piece of work this lady is! To nail the part of Rosalyn in American Hustle, Lawrence oozed a cockney brand of narcissism just right for the role. In this scene, Rosalyn catches the microwave on fire by leaving foil on some food, but manages to flip the situation in her favor by pointing out that the microwave zaps all the nutrition out of their food and catches their house on fire anyway.
In a truly heartbreaking moment, Katniss Everdeen does the unthinkable — volunteer to be a tribute in the Hunger Games. She does so, of course, to save her little sister Primrose. It is this singular incident that sets the entire course of Katniss’ future on a collision course with the Capitol.
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