Jennifer Lawrence Breaks Silence On Comments About Female-Led Action Movies

After facing considerable backlash online, Jennifer Lawrence has spoken up concerning her previous comment about female-led action movies. The actress starred in the first "Hunger Games" film in 2012 and has gone on to reprise her role as Katniss Everdeen in the three sequels.

In an earlier interview, Lawrence spoke about Hollywood's ill-treatment of female actors and looked back on her role in the popular sci-fi. She claimed that she was the first female actress to play a lead role in an action movie, a claim strongly contested by the public.

After her comment, the actress received increasing criticism on social media, with fans mentioning the numerous other women who had played lead roles long before her, such as Angelina Jolie and several others.

Read on to learn more.

Lawrence recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter to clarify misunderstandings surrounding her previous comment about female-led action movies. The actress said, "That's certainly not what I meant to say at all. I know that I am not the only woman who has ever led an action film."

According to Lawrence, she only wanted to emphasize how good it felt to play the role at the time. She also claimed that another contributing factor to the blunder was talking to Viola Davis, who she said was a "living legend." "What I meant to emphasize was how good it feels," she said.

"And I meant that with Viola — to blow past these old myths that you hear about … about the chatter that you would hear around that kind of thing. But it was my blunder, and it came out wrong. I had nerves talking to a living legend," the actress continued.

On December 7, the actress sat with Davis in a Variety's Actors on Actors interview where she talked about her time filming the "Hunger Games" movies. During the conversation, the "Silver Linings" actress spoke about how women were treated unfairly in the film industry, pointing out the shortage of women in lead roles in the action genre.

The comment that drew the ire of the internet was when Lawrence claimed that before her casting in the "Hunger Games" franchise, nobody had been cast as a female lead in an action film.

She said, "I remember when I was doing 'Hunger Games,' nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn't work... because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead."

Fans seemed to disagree with the actress' first comment about female lead roles. The interview was posted on the official Twitter page of Variety, and critics wasted no time in quoting and commenting on the post.

Several comments accused Lawrence of being ill-informed and listed several actresses that had played lead action roles earlier. Some mentioned names include Pam Grier, Halle Berry, Sigourney Weaver, Uma Thurman, Linda Hamilton, Angelina Jolie, and a list of others.

Not every comment was against Lawrence; some pointed out that she may have just been reciting what she was told to say.

During the interview, the "Joy" star and Davis talked about the latter's recent movie, "The Woman King" and how much of a success it was. Davis revealed that before working on the film, she felt some apprehension because the movie would focus on a barely explored area.

Davis recalled thinking, "When have I ever seen anything like The Woman King? Not just with me in it, but with anyone who looks like me in it? What studio is going to put money behind it? How are they going to be convinced that Black women can lead a global box office?"

In response, Lawrence said, "I wanna circle back to you being the lead of The Woman King. And we're at; I think it's 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes? Sixty-six million domestic. I mean, it is just … It couldn't have been more wrong."

The actress added that she felt "happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every one of those beliefs and proves that it is just a lie to keep certain people out of the movies."