Hollywood actress Jennifer Lawrence has revealed she felt pressure to lose weight when she landed the lead role in the Hunger Games trilogy.
The star played Katniss Everdeen in the film series, which helped to launch her acting career and bring her fame. Lawrence was just 20 years old when she first appeared in the Hunger Games films in 2012.
However, she's now spoken out about the pressures she faced as a young actress taking on a well known fiction character and how conversation focused heavily on her appearance.
Despite pressure to shed pounds, Lawrence pushed back on executives and fought against having to diet to fit her role.
Lawrence revealed she was told to lose 15 pounds in two weeks for a role prior to starring in the Hunger Games role, but she refused.
In conversation with Viola Davis for Variety's 'Actors on Actors' series, Jennifer explained: "In Hunger Games, it was an awesome responsibility. Those books were huge, and I knew that the audience was children.
"I remember the biggest conversation was, "How much weight are you going to lose?""
Lawrence continued: "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."
In previous interviews, Lawrence has been adamant she will never diet for a role as she claimed "I’m never going to starve myself for a part".
The only role she did attempt to diet for was her appearance as a former ballerina in Red Sparrow. At the time of the film's release, Lawrence said this was "the first time that I was really hungry, and disciplined. I can't be in character as an ex-ballerina and not feel like an ex-ballerina."
However she admitted she struggled to stick to the diet and it affected her ability to work.
In other recent interviews, Lawrence has also come under fire for making comments that claim she was the first ever woman to be cast as the lead in an action movie, with fans slamming the remark as "absurd".
She said: " I remember when I was doing Hunger Games, nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work.
"Because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead."
She also added: "It just makes me so happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every one of those beliefs, and proves that it is just a lie to keep certain people out of the movies."
