Jennifer Lawrence Is Related To An “Avengers” Star

Jennifer Lawrence has several things in common with her American Hustle co-star Jeremy Renner. They both have played hugely popular, bow-and-arrow-wielding characters in successful franchises, and both have family roots in Kentucky. Plus, according to some researchers at Ancestry, they have some family roots in common, as well.

Lawrence — who is famously from Louisville, Kentucky — and Renner are actually fifth cousins once removed, and share a great-grandfather, a farmer named Robert Tague. Historian Michelle Ercanbrack said the discovery was made after her team began to look into a possible link between Lawrence and her Hunger Games co-star Josh Hutcherson, who is also from Kentucky. The two aren’t related, but a chance discovery in Renner’s family tree led to a connection.

“Later, we were researching Jeremy Renner and noticed he had a Tague family line from Kentucky, which looked familiar. Once we realized Jennifer Lawrence had the same family in her tree, finding the relationship between the two was not only quick, it was really close…with how closely Jennifer Lawrence and Jeremy Renner are related, we’re surprised they haven’t bumped into each other at a family reunion,” Ercanbrack told People.

Lawrence hasn’t commented on her newfound cousin, but she has been busy making the rounds promoting the final installment of The Hunger Games franchise. The star has been touring the globe with her co-stars and recently stopped by The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to talk about her most embarrassing moments following a close call on the red carpet, when she tripped over the train of her gown and made headlines with yet another fall.

The 25-year-old actress told Conan O’Brien that she is so clumsy, she actually dislocated her toe in bed because she was so excited by the prospect of several hours of uninterrupted sleep. Jennifer and her co-stars have been traveling for weeks now to promote the movie and she says she can’t sleep well in hotels.

“It’s exhausting. They pushed this show pony too far. We’ve been everywhere,” Jennifer Lawrence said.

“This was my first night of sleep … the best night of sleep the whole tour I got was on the plane,” the Oscar-winning actress said while explaining an iPhone video of herself bouncing like crazy on a plane bed. “It was about 12 hours and I actually dislocated my toe. I dislocated my toe by hitting my own foot.”

Jennifer made headlines recently when she wrote an essay for Lena Dunham’s newsletter, Lenny, about the gender pay gap in Hollywood, saying she had failed herself by not speaking up out of a fear of being seen as “difficult.”

“I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don’t need…could there still be a lingering habit of trying to express our opinions in a certain way that doesn’t ‘offend’ or ‘scare’ men? At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled,'” she wrote.

Since the essay was published, several other actresses in Hollywood have spoken up about the pay gap, including Elizabeth Banks and Emma Watson. But, it’s not just females in the industry who realize there’s a problem; Lawrence’s frequent co-star Bradley Cooper spoke up as well, saying the mindset needs to change.

“One thing I could say is that’s interesting because if you think that you only deserve a certain amount and that’s not correct, it’s about changing that mindset and sticking up for yourself. So that’s a great thing,” Cooper said.

[Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images]