Is Jennifer Lawrence the youngest Oscar winner?
Marlee Matlin has snatched Jennifer Lawrence's spot as the youngest Best Leading Actress Oscar winner, but Lawrence came close. She took the statuette at the age of 22 for her role in The Bright Side of Things, although she had already been nominated in 2011 with Winter's Bone, when she was 20 years old.
At 22 years and 193 days young, Jennifer Lawrence became the second-youngest Best Lead Actress winner in Academy history. She accomplished the historical feat for her turn in Silver Linings Playbook, a movie that offers an honest account of mental illness.
Directed by David O. Russell, the movie centers on Pat (Bradley Cooper), a bipolar man reeling over his fiancee's affair. As Pat is released from the mental ward and returns to his childhood home in Philadelphia, he runs into Tiffany (Lawrence), a wild, independent, and unpredictable young woman with her own baggage.
