Jennifer Lawrence (b. August 15, 1990) was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. By the age of 14, she had decided to pursue an acting career and persuaded her parents to take her to New York to find a talent agent.

“My parents did everything they could to stop it from happening,” Lawrence says. “But I was determined. And I convinced them that I should move to New York.” She prevailed: Jennifer and her mother relocated to Manhattan. But a year later her father was ready to bring them both back to Louisville. “That was a rough time,” Lawrence continued. “During that first year in New York, my dad wanted me to come home, my mom wanted me to stay, and it was the first time I ever heard them fight. I just felt I had to get a part so they could see that this was worth it.” Although she had no training or experience as an actress, Jennifer received high praise from the agency for which she auditioned. She graduated from high school two years early in order to begin acting.

Jennifer was part of the main cast of the TBS comedy The Bill Engvall Show as Lauren Pearson between 2007-2009. Written and created by Bill Engvall and Michael Leeson, the show is set in a Denver suburb and follows the life of ‘Bill Pearson’ (played by Engvall), a family counselor whose own family could use a little dose of counseling. The series was canceled in 2009 after having aired three seasons. “The money from the show, which lasted three seasons, funded my indie career. I’ve never had to do something crappy to pay the rent,” says Jennifer.

Lawrence starred in Guillermo Arriaga’s directorial debut The Burning Plain (2008), opposite Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. Her performance in the film earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young emerging actor/actress during the Venice Film Festival in 2008.

Jennifer Lawrence’s other film credits include a lead role in Lori Petty’s The Poker House (2008) opposite Selma Blair and Bokeem Woodbine as well as roles in Garden Party (2008) and Devil You Know (2009). Her television credits include roles on Cold Case, Medium, and Monk. Rumor has it that Jennifer auditioned for the roles of Bella Swan and Rosalie Hale in the Twilight film series but was not offered either part.

Lawrence has the lead role, frequently cited as a “breakout performance” for her, in Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone (2010), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She portrays a Ree Dolly, seventeen-year-old girl in the rural Ozarks caring for her mentally-ill mother and her younger brother and sister when she discovers that her father put their house and land up as a bond for a court appearance to which he failed to appear. Initially, director Debra Granik felt that Lawrence was too pretty for the gritty role of Ree Dolly. “They told me that my look wasn’t right,” Lawrence said. “And my agent acted like that was the end of it. I said, ‘It’s not.’ I flew to New York that night and auditioned again. I made them see me. And I apparently looked pretty bad from flying on the red-eye – my look didn’t seem wrong anymore.” Lawrence paused. “There are actresses who build themselves, and then there are actresses who are built by others,” she said. “I want to build myself.” Announced on January 25, 2011, Lawrence received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for the role, among a myriad of other accolades.

“The movie would be unimaginable with anyone less charismatic playing Ree,” David Denby wrote in The New Yorker. “She’s more believable as a heroic character than any of the men we’ve seen peacocking through movies recently.”

Jennifer co-starred with Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson in The Beaver (2011), a dark comedy that was filmed in 2009. After spending an extended period of time stalled due to controversy surrounding Gibson, it received a release date during spring 2011. Lawrence also has a co-starring role in the independent film Like Crazy, which premiered and was awarded at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and has been picked up by Paramount Pictures for a wider release. In the summer of 2011, Jennifer will play the role of young Mystique in X-Men: First Class (2011), a prequel to the rest of the X-Men film series. “I wouldn’t do X-Men if I didn’t find the character interesting,” she says. Lawrence is also set to star alongside Elisabeth Shue in Mark Tonderai’s thriller House at the End of the Street (2012), which completed filming in 2010 and is set for an early 2012 release.

Jennifer Lawrence was recently cast as Katniss Everdeen in the movie Hunger Games, set to be released in March 2012. The Hunger Games is Suzanne Collins’s searing trilogy of young-adult books that has sold millions of copies in the United States alone. The film’s director, Gary Ross, has said that choosing Jennifer was “the easiest casting decision I’ve ever made in my life.” And Collins calls her incredible, noting, “I never thought we’d find somebody this perfect for the role.”

Jennifer was featured in the music video for the song “The Mess I Made” by Parachute.

Lawrence states that she has never taken drama classes or acting lessons, simply relying on her instincts when playing a role. She lived in New York City for the first few years of her career but currently resides in Santa Monica, California.