Jennifer Lawrence(III)

As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwideJennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar.

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born August 151990in LouisvilleKentuckyto Karen (Koch)who manages a children's campand Gary Lawrencewho works in construction. She has two older brothersBen and Blaineand has EnglishGermanIrishand Scottish ancestry.

Her career began when she traveled to Manhattan at the age of fourteen after dropping out of the 8th grade. After conducting her first cold readagents told her mother that "it was the best cold read by a 14-year-old they had ever heard," and tried to convince her stage mother that she needed to spend the summer in Manhattan. After leaving the agencyJennifer was spotted by an agent in the midst of shooting an H&M ad and asked to take her picture. The next daythat agent followed up with her and invited her to the studio for a cold-read audition. Againthe agents were highly impressed and strongly urged her mother to allow her to spend the summer in New York City. As fate would have itshe did and subsequently appeared in commercials such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" and played a role in the movie The Devil You Know (2013).

Shortly thereafterher career forced her and her family to move to Los Angeleswhere she was cast in the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007)and in smaller movies such as The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2008).

Her big break came when she played Ree in Winter's Bone (2010)which landed her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Shortly thereaftershe secured the role of Mystique in franchise reboot X: First Class (2011)which went on to be a hit in Summer 2011. Around this timeLawrence scored the role of a lifetime when she was cast as Katniss Everdeen in the big-screen adaptation of literary sensation The Hunger Games (2012). The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies everwith over $407 million at the US box officeand instantly propelled Lawrence to the A-list among young actors and actresses. Three Hunger Games sequels were released in each consecutive November: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014)and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)with Lawrence reprising her role.

In 2012the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her the Academy AwardGolden Globe AwardScreen Actors Guild AwardSatellite Awardand the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actressamong other accoladesmaking her the youngest person ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and the second-youngest Best Actress winner.

She starred in David O. Russell's popular drama-comedy American Hustle (2013)as Roselyn Rosenfieldand teamed with the director again to play inventor Joy Mangano in another family comedyJoy (2015)for which she earned Oscar nominations for both roles (Best Supporting Actress and Best Actressrespectively).