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Jennifer Lawrence Says She Almost Turned Down Starring in The Hunger Games

Truth rating: 10

4:25 pm, September 9th, 2012

(GettyImages.com)

Jennifer Lawrence says she almost turned down starring in The Hunger Games, which has since made her a huge star.

While promoting her new film Silver Linings Playbook at the Toronto International Film Festival, Lawrence said she wasn’t sure she wanted to do big franchise films, preferring instead to focus on smaller, independent films.

She recalled thinking, “Just saying yes to this one thing could completely change my life, and I don’t know if it’s going to be for the better.”

Lawrence said she agonized for three days over whether to take the role of Katniss Everdeen.

The actress, who had already starred in the big studio film, X-Men: First Class, said her mom told her told, “You’re being a hypocrite, because you always say you don’t care about the size of the movies.”

Lawrence noted how she would tell others, “I don’t care about the size of the movie. I care about the story,” but as her mother pointed out with Hunger Games, “Now you have a story you like, and you’re not going to do it because of the size.”

“The truth was, in the bottom of my heart, I wanted to do it,” admitted Lawrence, adding, “I wanted to play this character. I was scared of the aftermath, but you can’t say no to things because you’re scared. You just have to go for it.”

Lawrence begins shooting the Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire on Monday.

She also had reservations about the third book in the series, “Mockingjay,” being divided into two parts ”until I heard how much money I would be getting,” she said with a laugh.

Silver Linings Playbook, co-starring Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Julia Stiles and Chris Tucker opens in November.

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