Katniss Everdeen: Jennifer Lawrence Never Pictured Herself As ‘Hunger Games’ Heroine [Video]

So, when Jennifer Lawrence was reading “The Hunger Games,” who did she imagine playing Katniss Everdeen? Hint: not herself!

“I pictured [her] as another face, with a braid,” she said during Moviefone’s special “Hunger Games” edition of Unscripted. The ever-modest actress has said repeatedly that she didn’t even think about playing Katniss in a movie version of Suzanne Collins’s best-selling YA book. “That would be slightly narcissistic, anyway,” she told Moviefone earlier.

While Lawrence wasn’t in a Katniss frame of mind, the same can’t be said for her co-star, Josh Hutcherson, who plays a baker’s son-turned hero Peter Mellark in the forthcoming film.

“I did,” Hutcherson chimes in, upon hearing Lawrence deny identifying with her starring role.

Jennifer, who also stars in the indy film Winter’s Bone, seemed taken back by the comment.

“You pictured me?” she asked.

Hutcherson quickly quipped, “I pictured me as Katniss [Everdeen].”

The Hunger Games, which is based on the youth novel series written by Suzanne Collins, is set in a futuristic North America. But gone are the flying cars and meals in pill form and instead there are trees – lots of them – and districts. Twelve districts in all are governed by one governing district (the Capitol), which summons one male and one female between the ages of 12 and 18 from each of the other 12 sections to compete in an annual challenge, where the winner receives food and supplies to last them for the rest of their life and the losers receive an untimely death.

The first movie in The Hunger Games trilogy hits theaters this Friday.

In the meantime, watch the short Unscripted interview with Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Banks (Effie Trinket), and Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark) below and let us know: Can you picture anyone Lawrence playing the role of Katniss Everdeen?

via Moviefone