Jennifer Lawrence for Vanity Fair February 2013

Photographed by Ellen von Unwerth

On being Katniss Everdeen: “I read the Hunger Games books when it was Oscar season, so for the first time I was in these dresses which didn’t look like me and didn’t feel like me. I felt like a walking rag doll. I remember sitting there in hair and makeup, listening to the things that they were talking about, and most of the things I didn’t even know…. So I read that and I was like, ‘I know exactly how that feels.’” 

On walking the red carpet: “It’s uncomfortable having to pose when people are shouting at you and the next day you just get slaughtered. You walk out there and go, ‘Hate me!’”

On auditioning for her first role: “I read the script, and it was the first time I had that feeling like I understand this. This is the first time I’ve ever understood anything. I was 14. And my brothers were star athletes. And one of them was a straight-A student. I always felt like I sucked at everything, that I could never find the thing that I liked. I auditioned and I probably sucked, but I had decided 100 percent that this is what I wanted to do.”