Louisville’s Jennifer Lawrence Up For Another Oscar

Louisville’s favorite actress, Jennifer Lawrence, received an Academy Award Best Actress nomination yesterday for her role in the comedic drama Joy.  The 25-year-old Lawrence becomes the youngest actor ever, male or female, to earn four Oscar nominations.   

In 2014, Lawrence made Academy Awards history when at 23 she became the youngest performer to collect her third nomination, for her role in American Hustle. That was only 10 months after she won an Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook.

Lawrence gained international fame for playing heroine Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games film series (2012–15), which established her as the highest-grossing action heroine as of 2015.

Jennifer was born and raised in Louisville, and is the daughter of Karen, a children's camp manager, and Gary Lawrence, a construction worker. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine.

By the age of 14, she had decided to pursue an acting career and persuaded her parents to take her to New York City to find a talent agent. Prior to finding success in Hollywood, she attended Kammerer Middle School in Louisville. She graduated from high school two years early with a 3.9/4.0 average, aiming at a career in acting.

Her latest movie, Joy, for which she is nominated for an Academy Award, is a 2015 American semi-biographical drama film, written and directed by David O. Russell and starring Lawrence as Joy (loosely based on Joy Mangano), a self-made millionaire who created her own business empire.

Mangano was a divorced ------ with three children in the early 1990s when she invented the Miracle Mop and became an overnight success, after which she patented many other products, often selling on the Home Shopping Network and QVC. The film is a semi-fictional and inspirational portrayal of how Mangano overcame personal and professional obstacles to rise to the top. Joy received a wide theatrical release on December 25, 2015, and is distributed by 20th Century Fox.

On her Facebook page (Jen and I are BFFs on Facebook), she had this to say:

“I am beyond grateful and humbled by this nomination. I feel incredibly honored to be recognized among the other amazing women in this category. Joy is an incredibly inspiring story about an ordinary woman who does extraordinary things. For me, working with David O. Russell has been nothing short of extraordinary, and I share this nomination with him as well as our incredible supporting cast. I could not be more proud to be a part of this film and thankful to the producers and Fox for their unyielding support.  –Jen”