[on auditions and meetings]: The miserable ones are the ones where all the girls auditioning are in the same room. There’s no talking in those rooms. I’ve tried.
Yesterday, I had to do an interview. I was in a horrible mood. I couldn’t think of basic words. I could see my publicist in the background, mouthing things to say. They want you to be likable all the time, and I’m just not.
I’m excited to be seen as sexy. But not slutty.
Where are the Robert Redfords and Paul Newmans of my age group? I love James Franco, but where’s the next James Franco? Where are the hunks who can act?
There are actresses who build themselves, and then there are actresses who are built by others. I want to build myself.
… I have this feeling of protectiveness over characters I want to play. I worry about them – if someone else gets the part, I’m afraid they won’t do it right; they’ll make the character a victim or they’ll make her a villain or they’ll just get it wrong somehow.
… When I get like that, anything’s possible.
[on her role in Winter’s Bone (2010)]: I’d have walked on hot coals to get the part. I thought it was the best female role I’d read – ever. I was so impressed by Ree’s tenacity and that she didn’t take no for an answer. For the audition, I had to fly on the redeye to New York and be as ugly as possible. I didn’t wash my hair for a week, I had no makeup on. I looked beat up in there. I think I had icicles hanging from my eyebrows.
When I first got to New York, my feet hit the sidewalk and you’d have thought I was born and raised there. I took over that town. None of my friends took me seriously. I came home and announced, “I’m going to move to New York,” and they were like “Okay.” Then when I did, they kept waiting for me to fail and come back. But I knew I wouldn’t. I was like “I’ll show you.”.
I never felt like I completely, 100% understood something so well as acting.
I’d like to direct at some point. But I don’t know because 10 years ago I would have never imagined that I’d be here. So in 10 years from now, I might be running a rodeo.
[on being a sudden sex symbol]: It feels weird. But [it’s] not bad at all.
I don’t really diet or anything. I’m miserable when I’m dieting and I like the way I look. I’m really sick of all these actresses looking like birds… I’d rather look a little chubby on camera and look like a person in real life, than look great on screen and look like a scarecrow in real life.
Winter’s Bone (2010) wasn’t a fun, easy movie to make by any means. But I didn’t do it to have fun.
I like when things are hard; I’m very competitive. If something seems difficult or impossible, it interests me.
[on not wanting to be famous] I look at Kristen Stewart now and I think, “I’d never want to be that famous.” I can’t imagine how I’d feel if all of a sudden my life was pandemonium.
I’m doing what I love, and then I get months and months of rest. I have a lot of money for a 21-year-old. I can’t stand it when actors complain.
I hate saying, “I like exercising.” I want to punch people who say that in the face. But it’s nice being in shape for a movie, because they basically do it all for you. It’s like “Here’s your trainer. This is what you can eat.” I don’t diet. I do exercise! But I don’t diet. You can’t work when you’re hungry, you know?
[on being asked if The Hunger Games (2012) transitioned her too quickly into stardom]: I think about this all the time. But when you get a promotion at your job, you don’t go “That was too fast. Can I stay in the mailroom a while longer?”. You take it.
[on posing in an Esquire magazine photo shoot to try and help shake up her public image] A lot of people said, “Oh, now we have a great actress come along and she’s showing her boobs.” But that’s exactly what I had to do so I could keep working. Honestly, that photo shoot is what helped me get X-Men [X-Men: First Class (2011)].
There’s just no imagination in Hollywood. I wanted to show people Winter’s Bone (2010) for the performance, but it ended up having the opposite effect. People were like “No, she’s not feminine, she’s not sexual.”.
[on referring to the characters she has played in Winter’s Bone (2010) and The Hunger Games (2012)] I don’t know what it is with me and maternal wilderness girls, I just love ’em. Even before Winter’s Bone, the first movie I ever did, The Poker House (2008), I was caring for my younger siblings in a tough, dark situation.
[on suffering through school] I always felt dumber than everybody else. I hated it. I hated being inside. I hated being behind a desk. School just kind of killed me.
I think it gets so much easier to let things roll off your back. It’s such a business of hurry up and wait, and if you let it get to you it will drive you absolutely insane. Like “Why was I called in at four in the morning and I haven’t been used until one in the afternoon?”. And “Why are we shooting this a million times when we have five other scenes to shoot?”. But you get to the point where you just say “This is filmmaking. This is what you get paid for. Everybody is doing the best they can. It’s what you have to live with.”.
It’s always been about the script and the director, for me. There are directors that I want to work with and that I admire. You can love a script, but if it doesn’t have a good director, it won’t be that. I like to adapt to a director’s way of working. I love doing that. Each director is so different, and you have to adapt to this new way of doing something. That’s what’s amazing to me. That’s why I love directors. I don’t want the director to have to work around me. I think it’s more fun for me to come in on their thing.
[on her acting method] To you it looks emotionally straining, but I don’t get emotionally drained, because I don’t invest any of my real emotions. I don’t take any of my characters’ pain home with me, I don’t even take it to craft services. I’ve never been through anything that my characters have been through. And I can’t go around looking for roles that are exactly like my life. So I just use my imagination. If it ever came down to the point where, to make a part better, I had to lose a little bit of my sanity, I wouldn’t do it. I would just do comedies.
[on owning her own bow and arrows] One time, I actually used it for defense. I pulled into my garage and I heard men in my house. And I was like “I’m not letting them take my stuff. I had just gotten back from training, so I had the bow and arrows in the back of my car. I went to my car and I put this quiver on me and I had my bow and I loaded it and I’m walking up the stairs. And I look, and my patio doors were open, and there were guys working right there, and I was like ‘Hey, how you doin’?’ They [her friends] were like ‘We’ve got to stage someone to break into your house and you can kill them!’ That would be the funniest news ever. Katniss Everdeen actually kills someone with a bow and arrow!”.
Not to sound rude, but [acting] is stupid. Everybody’s like “How can you remain with a level head?”. And I’m like “Why would I ever get cocky? I’m not saving anybody’s life. There are doctors who save lives and firemen who run into burning buildings. I’m making movies. It’s stupid.”.
[on meeting/being wowed by acting idols] Once I’m obsessed with somebody, I’m terrified of them instantly. I’m not scared of them – I’m scared of me and how I will react. Like, for instance, one time someone was introducing me to Bill Maher, and I saw Meryl Streep walk into the room, and I literally put my hand right in Bill Maher’s face and said, “Not now, Bill!”, and I just stared at Meryl Streep. [when asked if she met Meryl Streep] Of course not. I just creepily stared at her.
[on the moral of The Poker House (2008)] Things can happen to you, but they don’t have to happen to your soul.
[on forgetting to thank Harvey Weinstein in her Best Actress acceptance speech at the 85th Academy Awards (2013)] It’s been fun. I guess I’ll never work again.
[when asked in the Oscar Press Room, about what happened when she tripped on the stairs while accepting the award for Best Actress] Was that on purpose? Absolutely!… What do you mean what happened? Look at my dress! I tried to walk up stairs in this dress, that’s what happened. Yeah, I think I just stepped on the fabric and… they waxed the stairs.
Don’t worry about the bitches – that could be a good motto, because you come across people like that throughout your life.
I never play characters that are like me because I’m a boring person. I wouldn’t want to see me in a movie.
In Hollywood, I’m obese. I’m considered a fat actress. I eat like a caveman. I’ll be the only actress that doesn’t have anorexia rumors! I’m never going to starve myself for a part. I’m invincible. I don’t want little girls to be like “Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I’m going to skip dinner!”.
[on her dancing ability] I’m a horrible dancer!… I’m like a dad at prom… I look like Gumby getting electrocuted.
As soon as somebody farts around me, I think it’s hilarious. This is something my brothers did that now the boys at work are obsessed with. You cup it, and then you throw it in someone’s face and say, “Take a bite out of that cheeseburger!”.
The best birthday present I ever received was a T-shirt my friend had made that said “I passed out in Disneyland ’07” (I had heat stroke in Disneyland).
I am just a normal girl and a human being, and I haven’t been in this long enough to feel like this is my new normal.
I’m still getting used to everything. It still makes me a little emotional, just to see how quickly everything kind of changes — that it changes so fast.
[on mental illness] It’s just so bizarre in this world; if you have asthma, you take asthma medicine. If you have diabetes, you take diabetes medicine, but as soon as you have to take medication for your mind it’s… there’s such a stigma behind it.
My parents saw me so truly happy that they sacrificed everything for my happiness. Without my family, I would be nothing.
Maybe one day, I’ll turn into an asshole. But there are too many out there already.
[on fame] I’m from Kentucky. I used to be very personable and make eye contact and smile at people, and now all I do is look down. When I’m at dinner and one person after another keeps interrupting to take pictures, it’s like “I can’t live like this.”.
[on being dubbed the “Sexiest Woman in the World” by FHM magazine] It’s the lie heard around the world. I know the truth. I know Beyoncé is the queen of the world.
[on Josh Hutcherson] Whenever Josh is like “I don’t think you should do it like that.” And then I’m like “Oh, really? Do you wanna tell that to my Oscar?”.
[on her experiences on the set of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)] Everybody told me there were no spiders, so when I saw three, I started crying. Jungles are not easy when you’re afraid of everything. I think I am a legitimate alcoholic. No, what’s it called? An arachnophobic.
[on politics] I was raised a Republican, but I just can’t imagine supporting a party that doesn’t support women’s basic rights. It’s 2015 and gay people can get married and we think that we’ve come so far, so, yay! But have we? I don’t want to stay quiet about that stuff. My view on the [2016 US presidential election] is pretty cut-and-dried: If Donald Trump is president of the United States, it will be the end of the world. And he’s also the best thing to happen to the Democrats ever.