We imagine Jennifer Lawrence had a ball on New Year’s Eve – Champagne corks flying everywhere, casually raising a glass to a good year. To describe 2015 as massive for Jennifer Lawrence is something of an understatement.
Her role as kick-ass Katniss Everdeen made her the highest-earning actress on the whole planet. Her final Hunger Games film, Mockingjay – Part 2, dominated the box office, pushing the franchise’s global takings to nearly £2billion.
And looking at the buzz around Jen’s new film, Joy, she’s in prime position to clean up AGAIN at the Oscars – for a film about a mop. If we didn’t adore J-Law so much, we’d want to bop her on the head with that shiny statuette.
It’s easy to forget that, just six years ago, Jen, 25, was a virtual unknown: a jobbing actress from rural Kentucky. Back then, before she became the most powerful woman in Hollywood, J-Law was called “fat” and encouraged to lose weight by producers.
“Somebody told me I was fat, that I was going to get fired if I didn’t lose a certain amount of weight,” she said in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “They brought in pictures of me where I was basically naked, and told me to use them as motivation for my diet.” Ouch.
We can’t even.
“If anybody even tries to whisper the word ‘diet’, I’m like, ‘You can go f*** yourself,’” Jen added. Eat that, shape-shamers.
So, how does the hottest woman in Hollywood look like that without dieting? Step forward performance coach Dalton Wong, Jen’s long-time friend, who was there right at the start. Dalton specialises in training stars for action roles at Twenty Two Training, his boutique London gym, and Jen credits him for turning her from girl-next-door to hot property.
“I met Dalton back in 2010 when he trained me for X-Men: First Class,” writes Jen in the foreword to Dalton’s new book, The Feelgood Plan. “We spent 10-12 hours a day together for three months, working out between filming on set.
He changed my body for that movie, but gave me the skills to change my life.”
“X-Men was Jen’s first really big movie role and spending all that time together cemented our friendship,” Dalton says, speaking exclusively to heat. “Jen was only 20 years old, she hadn’t had many people educate her about fitness and nutrition.
We clicked because we’re both all about enjoying life. Ultimately, my job was to give Jen confidence, to help her be comfortable in her own skin and know that there’s no guilt in enjoying pizza or the odd chocolate bar if you’re eating well and doing exercise. And the fitter you are, the more you can enjoy life. This is what I instilled in her back in 2010.”
Read the full story in this week’s heat magazine – OUT NOW!