Jennifer Lawrence says Katniss inspired pay gap comments

By Tara Oakes
BERLIN, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Actress Jennifer Lawrence said
playing the reluctant warrior character Katniss Everdeen in the
"Hunger Games" inspired her to speak out against the gender pay
gap in the film industry.
Lawrence, who criticised the disparity in pay between men
and women actors in Hollywood films in an open letter this
month, was asked at a news conference whether the Katniss
character had motivated her to address the issue.
"I don't see how I couldn't be inspired by this character, I
mean I was so inspired by her when I read the books, it's the
reason I wanted to play her," she said, a day before the world
premiere of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2" in Berlin.
"So I think it would be impossible to go four years with
this character and not be inspired by her."
Co-star Donald Sutherland, who plays the tyrannical
President Snow whose government is the target of the revolution
led by Katniss, said he hoped the hugely popular films would
motivate young people worldwide to become political activists.
"If it doesn't work, we're dead, all of us, if we don't
evoke climate change, if we don't solve refugee problems, we
don't do any of that, we're dead," Sutherland said, adding that
a film could be a trigger for change.
"I know that it can because 'Paths of Glory', Stanley
Kubrick's film, politicised me in 1956," the Canadian actor
said. "So this one is universal, it goes all over the world and
young people love it."
Lawrence, who has become one of the brightest stars in
Hollywood largely on the basis of the "Hunger Games" films based
on the novels by Suzanne Collins, said that for her the hardest
aspect of playing Katniss was the fact that the character was a
slow burn when it came to becoming a diehard revolutionary.
"I wanted her to be a warrior right away, I wanted her to
want to be a leader," Lawrence said. "I had to keep my own
personal emotions about her situation out of my performance."