Dial back just 10 years and it’s pretty much safe to say that no one had heard of American actress Jennifer Lawrence. Since then, though, she has appeared in more than 20 movies and won a host of awards – including that most-prized of Hollywood accolades, an Oscar. Away from the screen, she has also become one of the prime movers in the #MeToo movement. That’s not bad going for someone who is still two years from turning 30.

Back in 2010, she was still very much below the radar. She’d appeared way down the cast list in three moderately successful movies and had barely troubled telly fans with a couple of largely-forgettable roles. Then came Winter’s Bone.

While it’s a movie that would hardly make it to the list of Hollywood All-Time Greats, this bleak tale of a young woman searching for her meth-dealing father in the Missouri wilderness proved the perfect vehicle for young Lawrence, with audiences and professional pundits alike wowed by her steely on-screen magnetism and clear mastery of her craft.

With Winter’s Bone (2010) very much her calling card, 2012 saw her take the lead in three movies, each of which further burnished her rising star status. One of them – Silver Linings Playbook – even led to her troubling the Oscar jury once again. This time, they voted in her favour and she walked off with the much-coveted Best Actress title at the 2013 ceremony.

Oddly enough, it was Lawrence’s previously anti-acting mother who cajoled her into auditioning for her subsequently career-defining role as Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of the post-apocalyptic The Hunger Games quartet of movies. A huge success from the opening night of the first instalment onwards, the role confirmed her as Hollywood royalty, while also seeing her widely acclaimed as a feminist icon – a status she happily embraced. 

Clearly, such lessons were not lost on Lawrence herself. Finding she was paid way less than her male co-stars for her Oscar-nominated performance in the 2013 crime drama American Hustle, she went very public with her dissatisfaction. In the process, she established herself as one of the key players in a growing movement that was calling for an end to gender discrimination when it came to Hollywood earnings.

After the leaking of some very personal photographs to the public Lawrence, rather than being apologetic over their nature, formally released the images herself and set about owning the situation. She also used the apparent scandal as a platform for denouncing the abusive treatment of women around the world, and, in particular, for calling to an end to Hollywood’s heterosexual male-dominated hierarchy.

Her avowed stance as a libertarian feminist, however, has not seen her immune to criticism. Indeed, when she appeared at the premier of Red Sparrow, her 2018 spy thriller, in a glittering Versace gown, complete with plunging neckline and a thigh-high slit, the Twitterati were quick to call out her apparent hypocrisy.

Responding to such charges with her characteristic frankness, she said: “It’s utterly ridiculous the way certain factions overreact to everything I say or do or even something as wholly innocuous as what I choose to wear. Such comments do not move us forward. At best, they are silly distractions from the real issues. Everything you see me wear is my choice. And if I want to be cold, well, that’s my choice too.”

Perhaps in tacit admission that red carpet glamour wasn’t necessarily enhancing her self-adopted role as a global ambassador for women’s rights, she has since announced her intention to step back from making movies, saying: “I am taking a year off to fix our democracy.” It’s a promise she seems intent on keeping.

As well as continuing to champion women’s rights, she has also emerged as a key player in RepresentUS, a US-based anti-corruption movement dedicated to ensuring future US elections are free of the dirty tricks and chicanery that have characterised the most recent campaigns.

Summing up where she is right now, she says: “Everything I care about falls under the wide net of political corruption. As I get older, I find my passion increasingly turns to politics.” Given that Ronald Reagan proved that an acting background was no bar to becoming president back in the ’80s – and that the current Oval Office incumbent first made his name as a reality TV star – Jennifer Lawrence may yet find a role more career-defining than even Katniss.

Text: Anthony Warren  
Photo: AFP