Actors on Actors is a Variety format that pits two high-profile performers in the awards race (or prominent overall) against each other to discuss a variety of issues. It's an appropriate, unscripted way to get up close and personal with Hollywood stars, but by sheer conception it's also easy to launch spontaneous observations, with options to garner the fury of social media. This is what happened to Jennifer Lawrence, who shared an Actors on Actors with Viola Davis. The latter stars in The King Woman, a film directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood that has had good reviews and led both actresses to discuss the presence of women in action movies. Lawrence then went back to The Hunger Games.
For this 2012 film, based on the Suzanne Collins novel, Lawrence played Katniss Everdeen, and she claimed that she was a pioneering role. “I remember when I was making The Hunger Games, no one ever cast a woman in the lead role in an action movie. Because it wouldn't work, they told us. Both girls and boys can identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead. While her thoughts on Hollywood bias are spot on, it's easy to disprove that there weren't any women leading action movies before The Hunger Games. Without going any further, Sigourney Weaver in Alien, or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.
The networks were quick to denounce this oversight, so that days later Lawrence had no choice but to rectify her words via The Hollywood Reporter. “Not at all what I wanted to say. I know I'm not the only woman who has starred in an action movie,” she stated. While Katniss wasn't the first leading lady in this style, it seems clear that The Hunger Games made quite an impact on the industry, becoming the third highest-grossing film of its year. As Lawrence became a star in the wake of her success, there have been an increasing number of actresses headlining blockbusters, from Daisy Ridley in Star Wars to Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, to Gal Gadot in the Wonder Woman movies.
“What I wanted to emphasize is how good it feels. And I meant Viola, to get over those old myths you hear about... about the chatter you hear around that kind of thing. But it was my mistake and it went wrong. I got nervous talking to a living legend," Lawrence concluded. This year Causeway has premiered on Apple TV+, and although it aims to stay out of the current Oscar race, the phenomenon of The Hunger Games continues to grow alongside it: a prequel is being prepared for November 17, 2023, The Ballad of Birds singers and snakes, centered on President Snow played by Donald Sutherland.
