14 DAY TRIAL // When Jennifer Lawrence was cast in the first “Hunger Games” movie, she was not a mainstream star, an A-lister. She’d had several outings that had been received with critical praise, but she was far from the superstar she is today.
The difference between then and now is that, today, she commands $20 million (€18.2 million) paychecks and that, because of said paychecks, she is no longer body-shamed into losing weight by directors and studio executives.
Jennifer Lawrence and her love of food
Jennifer Lawrence was never “fat” or anything even remotely close to it. On the other hand, she was not the typical Hollywood star either, in that she had curves and she loved to eat (and to talk about it whenever the opportunity came her way).
Whereas other female stars would talk about their diets and workout routines on the red carpet, Jennifer talked about how starving she was and how she couldn’t wait to be inside so she could try out the canapés or head out for a burger after the gala.
Speaking on the “Hunger Games” panel at Comic-Con 2015 in San Diego, Jennifer acknowledges that her open love of food might come across as annoying, The Huffington Post writes.
Still, she hopes it has shed some light on the struggle of up-and-coming actresses. She also hopes the future will be better for women in film, both in terms of the offers available to them and the demands made of them to play said roles.
Being a Hollywood superstar silences body-shamers
Speaking of roles, now that she’s one of the hottest young actresses around and one of the most bankable stars overall, Jennifer is no longer told she “needs” to lose weight for a role. Believe it or not, but when the first “Hunger Games” movie came out, she was actually criticized in the media for being “too fat” for Katniss Everdeen.
Before that, she would reveal in a later interview, she’d been under pressure from studio executives to lose “a few pounds” because she would have looked “better” on the big screen.
“I had a conversation with somebody about the struggles with weight in the industry - I know that’s something I talk nonstop about,” she said on the Comic-Con panel. “And they were saying, ‘All of the main movie stars aren’t very underweight.’ I said, ‘Yeah, because once you get to a certain place [in your career], people will hire you. They just want you to be in the movie, so they don’t care.’ It’s more about the struggle for the actors and actresses who haven’t made it to a certain place.”
So now that she’s in that certain place in her career, she no longer has to worry about being told she’s not good enough physically for a role, even though she has the talent to deliver a convincing, impressive performance.