The Hunger Games director Gary Ross reminisces about Jennifer Lawrence's audition for the young adult blockbuster. In 2022, Jennifer Lawrence is one of the most respected young actresses in the industry. The four-time Oscar nominee - and one-time winner, for Silver Linings Playbook - has managed to bridge the gap between blockbuster tentpole films (including playing Mystique in the X-Men prequel franchise that began with First Class) and more arthouse-oriented work like Mother!, even starring in yet another Best Picture-nominated film just last year, with Adam McKay's Don't Look Up.
However, despite the fact that she'd already been nominated for Best Actress for an early role in Winter's Bone, her titanic career success couldn't have been achieved without being cast in the 2012 film The Hunger Games, adapted from the Suzanne Collins novel of the same name. She starred in the dystopian thriller as Katniss Everdeen, a young woman who is forced to participate in a life-or-death tournament with 23 other kids from different districts. Katniss volunteers to be the tribute from District 12 to prevent her younger sister from suffering her fate, and eventually goes on to subvert the system and keep herself and her district counterpart Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) alive.
While speaking with THR in honor of the 10th anniversary of The Hunger Games, director Gary Ross spoke about the audition that landed Jennifer Lawrence the role. He reveals that even though the studio had him hold a wide range of auditions, he "had a real sense of who I wanted before the auditions." This included Hutcherson, Lawrence, and Liam Hemsworth, who played Lawrence's love interest Gale. Ross admits that "these were honestly easy decisions for me," and mentioned that in her audition "Jennifer blew the doors off the place." Read the full quote below:
Honestly, I had a real sense of who I wanted before the auditions, but because it was a huge franchise the studio wanted everyone to read, which was fine. It was fun, actually. Jennifer blew the doors off the place. Josh was pitch-perfect. I had no idea that Liam wasn’t American until I talked to him when the reading was over. They were all just great. These were honestly easy decisions for me.
Lawrence's impressive audition was a harbinger of things to come. After securing the role of Katniss, she would go on to play the character in three more Hunger Games films, all the way through Mockingjay - Part 2 in 2015. Collectively, the films earned $1.5 billion on the domestic front alone, making her one of the most bankable stars of the decade. Indeed, in 2014 Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt were ranked by Forbes as the two highest-grossing stars of the year. Lawrence parlayed her Hunger Games success to land roles in films like Passengers and Red Sparrow, in addition to her Oscar-nominated works.
She wouldn't have achieved this success if it weren't for the power she brought to The Hunger Games. With a different star in the lead, the potential film franchise might have crashed and burned like so many aborted YA adaptations, including box office disappointments The Golden Compass and The 5th Wave. Clearly Lawrence showed just as much of this potential from the very first time she stepped into the room, so she has well earned this longstanding success.
Source: THR
