THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: You hesitated when offered the part. What finally made you say yes?

Jennifer Lawrence: I called my mom, and she called me a hypocrite because when I was doing indie movies and everyone was asking why I didn’t do studio movies, I said, “The size of the movie doesn’t matter.” And she said, “Here’s a movie you love, and you were thinking of turning it down because of its size.” I thought: “I don’t want to miss out because I’m scared. Me being scared, I never want that to stop me from doing something.” But I knew in my heart that I wanted it — it was about working out all the fears.

THR: How did you prepare?

Lawrence:I did a lot of running because that’s all she does — track running and free running — then hand-to-hand combat and yoga. We trained to be able to do every stunt in the movie, and the ones that didn’t work out, my stunt double would do. I trained about four hours a day. Trying to find what Katniss’ body should look like put a lot of pressure on my shoulders. And it was stressful because I didn’t want to disappoint anybody — there was a lot of pressure to get your body to a place where an entire franchise is based [on it].