Jennifer Lawrence Found Scary Details After She Googled Herself as ‘Ugly': "No Point in Feeling Anxious"

Jennifer Lawrence's life transformed after playing Katniss Everdeen in the hugely successful film series The Hunger Games. Lawrence discussed how she has "personally changed" after the release of the first Hunger Games movies in 2012 in an interview with The New York Times in 2015. "I don’t feel like I’m being dragged by anything anymore. I feel more in control. I’m calmer," the then 25-year-old Oscar winner said. "I know that there’s no point in feeling anxious all day, so I try not to. I’m still scared, but it’s about different things."

She does, however, worry about the media more now that she is an A-list actress, per Entertainment Tonight. She said, "I'm so scared to say anything now. I can see every negative way that people can take it, and I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. 'Oh, she's so conceited now. Oh, she's so jaded now.' It probably comes from Googling myself. If it were up to me, I would not talk. I would just act."

She said, "You try being 22, having a period, and staying away from Google," defending her Google-using habits. "I once Googled ‘Jennifer Lawrence Ugly.’ [Laughs] Do I sound b**chy?"

But the actress does acknowledge that it is a very horrible habit and she wants to change that. "I can't think of a more wasteful use of my time than to worry about this," she said. "Why do I care what people think? But I do. I just can't pretend I don't care. I get really insecure about it." Then she added, "I'm going to leave here and think, Oh God, why couldn't I just have been cool and confident?"

Lawrence chuckled when asked how she handles the stress that comes with fame and said, "I have a prescription." The Hunger Games star revealed her ways of dealing with this anxiety post her fame. "I find a certain peace by thinking of me in public as sort of an avatar self. You out there can have the avatar me. I can keep me," she continued. "And I just try to acknowledge that this scrutiny is stressful and that anyone would find it stressful. So I’ve got to try to let it go, and try to be myself, and focus on important things, like picking up dog poop."

The actress has been open about her anxiety. The actress described her social anxiety disorder in a 2013 interview with the French magazine Madam Figaro, per ABC News. "My nickname was 'Nitro,' as nitroglycerin," she recalled of her childhood. "I was hyperactive, curious about everything. When my mother talks about my childhood, she always says there was a light within me."

"When I went to school, this light went out," she continued. "We never knew what it was, a kind of social anxiety. I went to see a shrink, nothing worked."

References:

https://www.etonline.com/news/171595_jennifer_lawrence_tells_new_york_times_she_googles_ugly_images_of_herself

https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/11/jennifer-lawrence-on-her-anxiety-disorder

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/movies/jennifer-lawrence-has-no-appetite-for-playing-fame-games.html