Jennifer Lawrence: Acting changed me

OHMYGOSSIP — Jennifer Lawrence says acting changed her life. The Hunger Games star, 23, has revealed being onstage cured her social anxiety.

“My nickname was ‘Nitro.’ I was hyperactive, curious about everything,” Lawrence tells the French magazine Madame Figaro in its new cover story. “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.

“We never knew what it was, a kind of social anxiety.

“I went to see a shrink, nothing worked.

“One day, I begged my parents to take me to a casting. We went off to New York and that’s where I started acting. On stage, my mother saw the change taking place in me. She saw my anxieties disappear.

“It made me happy because I felt capable whereas before I felt good for nothing. This is why mom fought for me to become an actress.

“They wanted me to grow up in Kentucky, to lead a normal life, what all parents want for their children. But they saw me so truly happy that they sacrificed everything for my happiness … without my family, I would be nothing.”