Jennifer Shrader Lawrence

 Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American actress. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, she was spotted by a talent scout in New York City at the age of 14. She soon moved to Los Angeles and began her acting career by playing guest roles in television shows. Her first major role came as a main cast member on the sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007–09). She made her film debut with a supporting role in Garden Party (2008), following which she had her breakthrough with the acclaimed role of a poverty-stricken teenager in the independent drama Winter's Bone (2010).

Lawrence achieved wider recognition for playing the mutant Mystique in X-Men: First Class (2011), a role she reprised in later installments of the X-Men franchise. Her starring role as Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games film series (2012–15) established her as the highest-grossing action heroine of all time. Lawrence has earned several accolades from her collaborations with the director David O. Russell. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing a depressed widow in the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012), making her the second-youngest Best Actress Oscar winner. She received the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for portraying a troubled wife in the black comedy American Hustle (2013). She also won three Golden Globe Awards for her roles in the two aforementioned films and for starring as the eponymous inventor in the biopic Joy (2015).

 As of 2016, Lawrence is the highest-paid actress in the world and her films have grossed over $5 billion worldwide. She is the youngest actress to accrue four Academy Award nominations. Lawrence is also a vocal advocate of feminism and gender equality, and is the founder of the Jennifer Lawrence Foundation through which she supports various charitable organizations.

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born on August 15, 1990, in the Indian Hills suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky, to Gary Lawrence, a construction worker, and his wife, Karen, a children's camp manager. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine. Lawrence was educated at the Kammerer Middle School in Louisville. She describes her childhood as an "unhappy" experience, as she suffered from hyperactivity and social anxiety and considered herself a misfit among her peers.

A cheerleader at school, Lawrence also played several sports, including softball, field hockey and basketball, which she played on a boys team that her father coached. Her mother did not allow her to play with other girls as she deemed her "too rough". Lawrence was particularly fond of horseback riding and made daily visits to a local horse farm. She has a deformed coccyx from being thrown off a horse. Describing her ambitions as a child, Lawrence has said, "I always had a very normal idea of what I wanted: I was going to be a mom and I was going to be a doctor and I was going to live in Kentucky. But I always knew that I was going to be famous." When her father worked from home, she would perform for him, often dressing up as a clown or ballerina. Her first acting assignment was at the age of nine with the role of a prostitute in a church play based on the Book of Jonah, that led to a family friend telling her mother, "We don't know if we should congratulate you or not, because your kid's a great prostitute". For the next few years, Lawrence continued to take on parts in church plays and school musicals.

During a family vacation to New York City, when Lawrence was 14 years old, she was spotted by a talent scout who arranged for her to audition for agents. Karen was not keen to let her daughter pursue an acting career, but she briefly moved to the city to let Lawrence read for roles. After Lawrence's first cold read, the agents opined that her read was the best they had seen from someone that young, though her mother convinced her that the agents were lying. Describing her early experiences, Lawrence said: "It was hard at first. I didn't have any friends. I remember being kind of lonely." Despite opposition from her parents, Lawrence signed on with the CESD Talent Agency, who convinced her parents to let their daughter audition for roles in Los Angeles. Karen agreed to let Lawrence pursue acting on the condition that she graduate from high school. Lawrence was eventually home-schooled in Los Angeles, and graduated two years early with a high score. Considering acting to be a natural fit for her, Lawrence turned down several offers for modelling assignments at the time. Between her acting jobs in the city, Lawrence made regular visits to Louisville, during which she served as an assistant nurse at her mother's camp.