Jennifer Lawrence's movie career is 'Catching Fire' - Reading Eagle

Jennifer Lawrence is 23, and she's two things that can be hard to combine: As the reigning Oscar winner for Best Actress, she's officially been certified as one of the finest actresses of her generation. As the star of "The Hunger Games" (2012) and its upcoming sequel, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," she's one of that generation's biggest movie stars.

Being an actress and being a movie star isn't always a comfortable fit, however. The glamour of stardom can get in the way of the ability to submerge oneself in a role, while the actor's hunger for new and different roles can mess with the chemistry of celebrity. Some men and women never quite solve that puzzle.

If the effort to do so is wearing on Lawrence, though, it isn't apparent. As she arrives at a Los Angeles hotel to promote "Catching Fire," which is set to open nationwide on Friday, she seems upbeat, even buoyant as she stops to kid with co-stars Elizabeth Banks, Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson before settling down to talk about her fans' two favorite subjects, herself and Katniss Everdeen, her character in the "Hunger Games" movies.

She's stylishly clad in a dusky-gold shirt, beige pants and a big, black sweater, the bright morning sun hitting her new short, blonde bob - "I love how easy it is now," she said - which is as bouncy as her mood.

The original "Hunger Games," made for $78 million, grossed more than $680 million worldwide. Lawrence already was seen as a rising star in Hollywood, thanks to her Oscar nomination as Best Actress for "Winter's Bone" (2010), but her performance as Katniss, the resourceful young woman who, in a dystopian future, enters and wins a kill-or-be-killed tournament for young people, made her a household name. Her next film, "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012), earned her an Oscar as Best Actress, and since then it's been about balancing the two aspects of her career.

Lawrence herself insists that there's no problem there, because "The Hunger Games" continues to offer her substantial challenges as an actress. They're simply more physical than those that come with most of her other roles.

In the sequel, like the original based on a best-selling novel by Suzanne Collins, Katniss and Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson) don't get long to celebrate their victory in the 74th Hunger Games. The evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) decides to pit past winners of the games against each other for a special 75th-anniversary game called the Quarter Quell. Despite having been promised that she never would have to fight again, Katniss now finds herself stranded in a jungle landscape where the dangers include flesh-eating fog and birds that would make Alfred Hitchcock proud. Soon she and other games veterans are plotting the overthrow of the totalitarian government.

"There's a scene where we're hanging onto a spinning clock in the middle of a river," Lawrence recalled. "It was hard because this wheel was going 30 miles per hour in freezing-cold water. I had morning sickness."

And then, hearing herself, she gasped and slaps a hand to her mouth.

"Motion sickness," she said, laughing. "Oh my God! Now the morning-sickness rumors are what I'll be dealing with for the rest of the month. I will say on the record that it was tough to keep the cookies down, but it wasn't morning sickness."

In the first movie Katniss and her friends are helplessly forced into a game in which most of them will be killed. In "Catching Fire" the shoe is on the other foot.

"These teenagers are beginning to say, 'We don't need to play this game. We won't play this game. We don't have to follow the rules,' " Lawrence said. "Even if a few people say those words, it's progress.

"What we see here is Katniss growing and changing with each film. She's really finding her voice, and she becomes the voice of the people who have been forced to send their children off to die."

With the role of Katniss, of course, Lawrence also accepted the risk of being typecast in that part. She did so knowingly.

"I knew the deal," she said. "When I signed on to do 'Hunger Games,' we already had 'Harry Potter' and 'Twilight.' I knew what to expect to a certain extent.

"And, if I'm going to be identified with a character for the rest of my life, it's fine. I love this character."

That said, Lawrence doesn't plan a career in action/adventure.

"It's crucial for me to mix it up," she said. "I want audiences to see that I can still do smaller roles. I started out doing indies, I'll end this career doing indies."

Next up for her is a reunion with David O. Russell, the writer/director who steered her to her Oscar for "Silver Linings Playbook." "American Hustle," opening in limited release on Dec. 18, is about a con man named Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) who is working with the FBI to infiltrate the New Jersey mob. Lawrence plays Rosenfeld's loose-cannon wife, and fellow Russell veterans Bradley Cooper and Amy Adams co-star.

"Getting back together with David was a no-brainer," Lawrence said.