Jennifer Lawrence achieved global super-stardom by landing the role of Katniss Everdeen in Lionsgates The Hunger Games franchise, which launched in 2012 and spanned four films through 2015. The franchise grossed $2.9 billion at the worldwide box office with Lawrence at the forefront. However, Lawrences tenure as Katniss would not have been possible had a different audition gone in the Oscar winners favor.
I auditioned for Twilight,' Lawrence confirmed during a recent interview on The Rewatchables podcast. They turned me down immediately. I didnt even get a callback. But my life wouldve been totally different. I got Hunger Games I think, like, a year later. It was probably after Winters Bone.'
Summit Entertainments Twilight saga launched in 2008 and spanned five movies through 2012. The franchise, which turned Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner into overnight stars, earned $3.3 billion at the worldwide box office. Lawrence said she had to churn out movies in between her Hunger Games films so that she was not only known for this franchise, which is something shed still have to do if she booked Twilight instead.
I was still in a franchise, so I was still trying to counteract the franchise-ness, Lawrence said. Id still be doing that if I was in Twilight. But I almost didnt do Hunger Games because Twilight had come out and that fandom had happened.
When I was trying to talk to people about making this decision after [Hunger Games] got offered to me, it was hard to explain to people this level of fame, Lawrence said. I assumed it was going to be the Twilight level of fame and that was never something I had in mind. I never wanted to be the most famous person on the planet. Thats a very different life than I pictured for me.
Given Twilight launched in the late 2000s, its stars were subjected to paparazzi and a tabloid culture that differed from Lawrences experience in the mid-2010s. Lawrence was still hounded, of course, but she said I wouldve been miserable, too had she starred in Twilight and had to deal with the media attention Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner faced.
Lionsgate is set to continue The Hunger Games franchise later this year with the prequel movie The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which stars Viola Davis, Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman and Hunter Schafer. Lawrence recently told Variety that she would be open to reprising Katniss should the franchise continue.
Oh, my God totally! Lawrence said when asked about a Hunger Games return. If Katniss ever could ever come back into my life, 100 percent.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes opens in theaters Nov. 17.