Jennifer Lawrence has responded to backlash after she claimed Katniss from The Hunger Games was one of the original female action heroes.
The 32-year-old actor recently took part in Variety's Actors on Actors interview, sitting with Viola Davis. She touched on the dystopian film franchise, with the first movie coming out 10 years ago in 2021, and the impact she thinks her character had.
'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 — we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead,' she explained.
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'And it just makes me so happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every single one of those beliefs, and proves that it is just a lie to keep certain people out of the movies. To keep certain people in the same position they've always been in, and it's just amazing to watch it happen.'
While some people supported J Law's comments, sharing their affection for Katniss, a number of fans and fellow actors alike criticised her claim that she was one of the earliest female action heroes.
Star Trek: The Next Generation star Denise Crosby tweeted: 'Hey Jennifer Lawrence, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to thank the many boys/men who were allowed to completely identify with a strong female character long before you were even born. There are a couple of us...'
Since then, Jennifer has clarified her comments to The Hollywood Reporter, saying: 'That’s certainly not what I meant to say at all. I know that I am not the only woman who has ever led an action film. What I meant to emphasise was how good it feels. And I meant that with Viola — to blow past these old myths that you hear about … about the chatter that you would hear around that kind of thing. But it was my blunder and it came out wrong. I had nerves talking to a living legend.'
That clears that one up, then.
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Dusty Baxter-Wright is an award-winning journalist and the Entertainment and Lifestyle Director at Cosmopolitan, having previously worked at Sugarscape. She was named one of PPA’s 30 Under 30 for her work covering pop culture, careers, interiors and travel, and oversees the site’s Entertainment and Lifestyle strategy across print, digital and video. As a journalist for the best part of a decade, she has interviewed everyone from Louis Theroux and Channing Tatum to Margot Robbie and Ncuti Gatwa, while she has also spoken on Times Radio and BBC Radio. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram here.
