According to Jennifer Lawrence, the biggest conversation surrounding her casting in The Hunger Games was “How much weight are you going to lose?”
She told Viola Davis for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series that she didn’t feel comfortable losing weight to play a character from a book beloved by children.
Lawrence said, “Along with me being young and growing and not able to be on a diet, 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. And I can’t let that seep into my brain either.”
During their conversation, the Oscar winner declared that before the 2012 film, “nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work.”
Fans quickly pointed out on Twitter that several women previously starred in action movies. For example, Sigourney Weaver played Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise starting in 1979 and Angelina Jolie starred in the 2001 and 2003 Tomb Raider movies.