The era of J-Law – On the unrivaled appeal of Jennifer Lawrence

In theaters Wednesday: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
In theaters Friday: American Hustle, Saving Mr. Banks
New on Blu-ray: Elysium, The Lone Ranger, Prisoners

You better get used to Jennifer Lawrence. And not in the “she’s in every single movie” kind of way, though she’ll land her share, obviously, but more like in the hyper real, unaffected way she seems to be floating through the typical Hollywood morass with a cutting, often riotous, honesty that makes her a golden quote and GIF machine unlike any actress before her. (Click here for a trove of GIFs)

The 23-year-old Kentucky native’s greatest hits aren’t her blockbuster turn in The Hunger Games, the X-Men franchise or even her Oscar winning performance in Silver Linings Playbook. No, they are the viral bits of “J-Law” that bounce around the Interwebs ad infinitum while the rest of her twenty something sisterhood of the silver screen is busy pausing for a PR team’s approval on every word and public gesture.

That she is talented and beautiful—both in ever so slightly unconventional ways—is mere happenstance. She’s winning devotees because everything she exudes feels like a welcome antidote to Kristen Stewart’s awkward bore and Anne Hathway’s overeager theater kid on steroids. Just watch Lawrence’s post-Oscars interview from earlier this year. It’s like she’s channeling every answer viewers at home would give to these ridiculous questions:

In an industry that rewards talent for being phony on screen, it is refreshing to see someone so young, so easily heated up and melted down into the stereotypical Hollywood mold off screen, to remain herself, and for that self to be someone so brazenly endearing and unpredictable. It’s like everything she says could be followed with “#nofilter.” But we do love a loose cannon, don’t we?

This year, Time listed Lawrence among its 100 Most Influential People in the World, and ELLE magazine named her the most powerful woman in entertainment (somewhere Oprah is strangling her publicist).

Maybe the lines are beginning to blur between Lawrence and her most well known role of Katniss Everdeen. Perhaps somewhere in a deep chamber of her fans’ hearts lies a flickering hope that, like their heroine from District 12 who starts a revolution against the fascist Capitol, Lawrence herself can somehow trounce on everything fake in Hollywood, and upend the entire system one cut-the-crap interview at a time—a real, live mocking jay.

While The Hunger Games: Catching Fire marches toward a domestic box office of well over $400 million, Lawrence appears this Friday in one of my most anticipated movies of 2013: David O. Russell’s 1970s-set organized crime drama American Hustle. Early reviews suggest she’s a scene-stealer, even among the likes of Oscar heavies like Amy Adams and Christian Bale. Watch the trailer below, and if that’s not enough, I leave you with the best red carpet photo bomb ever: