Jennifer Lawrence’s Journey To Stardom: “I Remember…Reading a Script and I Completely Understood It”

Posted March 16, 2012 by Kimmy in Cast

“For Lawrence, growing up in Louisville, Ky., as the youngest of three children of a construction worker father and a mother who ran a summer camp, acting was as viable a career option as becoming a professional surfer. She loved movies, though her family was more familiar with John Candy’s oeuvre than Woody Allen’s. Lawrence spent most of her playtime pretending to be a telephone operator, and she thought she’d go to college and maybe find a career as a travel agent. She suffered through school, never quite finding her niche.

‘I always felt dumber than everybody else,’ she said, recalling an incident in which a math teacher embarrassed her in a class when she kept asking questions because she didn’t understand the material. ‘I hated it. I hated being inside. I hated being behind a desk. School just kind of killed me.’

Lawrence’s perspective changed during a trip to New York with her mother. It’s a story that seems impossible today — one that happened only to pretty, young girls in a bygone era, before fame was a top career choice for teenagers. A talent agency photographer snapped Lawrence’s picture, and that photo landed her a few auditions and meetings with agents during her short stay.

‘I remember being in New York, reading a script and I completely understood it. I knew I could do it,’ she said. ‘They were offering me contracts on the spot and telling my mom I was good. I was finally hearing I was good at something. I didn’t want to give up on that.’”