Jeff Burlingame - Jennifer!. Film Star Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer!

A nomination for an Academy Award at age twenty allowed Jennifer Lawrence to move into more popular films like X-Men First Class and The Hunger Games. Little did she know that it would be a romantic comedy that would finally help her win the Academy Award. Read about Jennifer Lawrences early acting roles, her rise to fame, and her plans for the future.

Quotes, personal stories, and accessible features make this a book everyone will want to read.

Jennifer Lawrence is a rising young actor who has performed in a number of significant roles and will undoubtedly perform in several more. Learn more about the actor in this interesting and well written biography.

About the Author

Jeff Burlingame wrote Kurt Cobain: Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind, a N.Y. Public Library Book for Teen Age, and Jesse Owens: I Always Loved Running, an NAACP Image Award winner.

Jennifer Lawrence arrives at Academy Awards on February 27, 2011.

Jennifer Lawrence wasnt as well known as her competition. In fact, she wasnt as well known as most of those seated around her. Yet there she was on February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. She was watching in person as some of the biggest movie stars in the world were honored at the Academy Awards. It was a dream come true.

The reason Jennifer was there was the best part of the story. She wasnt there as a fan who was simply happy to be among the best actors and actresses alive. She was at the Academy Awardswhich are also known as the Oscarsbecause she was one of the best actors and actresses alive. She had earned that title one month earlier when she was nominated for the Best Actress award for her role in the independent movie Winters Bone.

At twenty years old, Jennifer was by far the youngest and least experienced of the five nominees for Best Actress. The others included film veterans Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, and Michelle Williams. Jennifer told Entertainment Weekly, I honestly feel like Im in the same category and the same sentence with actresses Ive been looking up to for most of my career. I reeeaaally dont care [if I win]. I really am just happy to be nominated.

Jennifer Lawrence (back row, fourth from left) poses with the rest of the cast of Winters Bone.

Just by being nominated, Jennifer had almost set a record. She was the second-youngest person ever nominated for Best Actress. She told one reporter from Louisville Magazine that every time someone asked her about the Oscars, I put my fingers in my ears and go la-la-la-la-la every time I hear that word. I have no idea how to talk about an Oscar at twenty years old. I can, like, make a dentist appointment, barely. I dont even know how to shop online.

Not many people believed Jennifer stood a chance of winning the Academy Award. She didnt think she had a shot, either. In fact, Jennifer admitted she spent some time practicing the face she was going to make for the TV cameras when she lost. Walking the red carpet before the ceremony in a red Calvin Klein dress, she told a TV Guide reporter, I really am just totally happy to be here. I cant wait to use my losing face.

Natalie Portman was pregnant when she beat out Jennifer Lawrence for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Jennifer got to use that losing face near the end of the show, when Portman won the award. As it turns out, her losing face was a toothy smile she wore the whole time Portman made her way to the stage. Despite Jennifers declaration that her face was planned, it didnt look like she was faking it. It looked like she really was happy, and she had every reason to be. She knew that being nominated for such a huge award would do wonders for her career. And it did. It gave her opportunities to audition for (and win!) starring roles in some of the biggest movies being made, including X-Men: First Class and The Hunger Games. It took her from being a virtually unknown actress to the top of the A-list. The world now knew her as Jennifer Lawrence, Academy Award nominee. She was a rising star.

Jennifer said she wouldnt let any of her new attention go to her head. She told the Wall Street Journal, Being an actress is such a tiny part of what I want to be. I want to make films and I want to be an actress like Meryl Streep and I want to be a mom like mine and drive a minivan.

Jennifer Lawrence hangs out with fellow Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld at the Governors Ball following the Academy Awards.

Meryl Streep is an inspiration for Jennifer Lawrence. Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2012. Here she poses with Jean Dujardin, who won the award for Best Actor.

Actors and actresses often struggle for decades to get a break as big as Jennifers. Most of them never get one. Jennifers big break was her Academy Award nomination. She received it just six years after she began acting professionally. But that didnt mean she got lucky. Jennifer used hard work, talent, and determination to become a great actress so quickly. And she did it all beginning in the most unlikely of places.

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born far away from the bright lights of Hollywood on August 15, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville is the largest city in the state and nicknamed Derby City. Its called that because every May, the popular Kentucky Derby horse race is held there at a world-famous track called Churchill Downs.

Jennifer grew up in Louisville, Kentucky.

Jennifer did not have any horses of her own when she was growing up, but she did have a pet goat and several family dogs. She also had two older brothers, Ben and Blaine. Just as many older brothers do to younger siblings, Ben and Blaine used to tease Jennifer at every opportunity.

Jennifers family lived in a large, tidy, red-brick house in the prosperous Louisville suburb of Indian Hills. Her father, Gary, owned a concrete business, and her mother, Karen, was a former cheerleader at the University of Louisville who ran a summer day camp for kids called Hi-Ho.

As might be expected of a young girl with two older brothersand one whose grandfather had been a basketball star at the University of Kentucky Jennifer grew up a tomboy. She was even nicknamed Nitro because she was so hyper. She played tennis, field hockey, and softball. Like many Kentuckians, she also developed an early love of horses. Jennifer told