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This afternoon Lionsgate announced that The Hunger Games had finally found its hero. Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) will play Katniss Everdeen, the embattled tribute from District 12 who goes on to lead a revolution in Suzanne Collins’ best-selling trilogy. Director Gary Ross spoke exclusively with EW about why 20-year-old Lawrence is the right actress, at the right age, to bring Katniss to life on the big screen. (Warning: Some spoilers follow.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you know Jennifer Lawrence was your Katniss?
GARY ROSS: First I saw Winter’s Bone, and I just thought she was phenomenally talented and just kind of riveting and amazing and had so much power. And then we had a meeting and I found her to be just a completely compelling, intelligent person. But then she came in and read for me and it just knocked me out. I don’t want to go into too many details, but we did a scene from the movie and it was so amazingly powerful that it was sort of stunning. You glimpsed every aspect of the role and the potential of the whole movie.

There’s already quite a bit of hand-wringing that, no matter how good an actress Lawrence is, at 20 she’s simply too old for the role.
First of all I talked to Suzanne extensively about this. Suzanne saw every single audition. And not only did Suzanne not have an issue with Jen’s age, she felt you need someone of a certain maturity and power to be Katniss. This is a girl who needs to incite a revolution. We can’t have an insubstantial person play her, and we can’t have someone who’s too young to play this. Suzanne was incredibly adamant about this. Far from being too old, she was very concerned that we would cast someone who was too young. In Suzanne’s mind, and in mine, Katniss is not a young girl. It’s important for her to be a young woman. She’s a maternal figure in her family. She’s had to take care of Prim and in many ways her mother since her father’s death. She’s had to grow up pretty quick.

Was the opportunity to side step any child labor laws an added bonus?
That’s not the reason. I absolutely cast the right person for the role and in my view there wasn’t even a question who the best Katniss was. It was the easiest casting decision I ever made in my life.

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The Hunger Games Confirms Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen