Why Jennifer Lawrence Thought She'd Be A Sitcom Star Forever

the bill engvall show jennifer lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence is one of the biggest names in showbiz nowadays, with a bunch of movies to her name that range from blockbuster franchise installments to critically-acclaimed dramas. Nominated for four Academy Awards (and winning one), Lawrence has already has a very successful career at the age of only 27. That said, she once believed that she was destined to remain a sitcom star for the entirety of her career. Lawrence landed a role on the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show, and she has this to say about her time on the sitcom circuit:

When I started acting, I was totally satisfied when I was on a sitcom because I had a steady paycheck. And I was like, 'Maybe I can just find a way to be on sitcoms forever.' I was totally satisfied and good. I never dreamed that I could have this kind of career.

The Bill Engvall Show lasted for three seasons on TBS from 2007-2009, with Jennifer Lawrence playing the eldest child in a family of five. The show isn't the most memorable ever to hit the small screen, and Lawrence is by far the biggest name among the cast in 2017. Apparently, there was a time when Lawrence would have been content to stick around the sitcom circuit for the rest of her career. Her comments to THR indicate that becoming a huge movie star wasn't even on her radar at the time.

Jennifer Lawrence didn't have many roles to her name when she landed The Bill Engvall Show. In fact, the only series she appeared in more than once was Medium, and that wasn't even as the same character. She did apparently audition for Gossip Girl and very much wanted the part, but that obviously never happened, as Blake Lively played Serena on that series. Lawrence went on to appear on the big screen following the end of The Bill Engvall Show. That big screen outing just so happened to be Winter's Bone in 2010.

Winter's Bone is the film that scored Jennifer Lawrence the first of her four Academy Award nominations to date, and it was just about as far from The Bill Engvall Show on TBS as can be imagined. It was also enough to land her a place in the limelight, and she would go on to appear in X-Men: First Class in 2011 and the first installment in the hugely successful Hunger Games saga in 2012. She ended up winning her first Oscar in 2013 for Silver Linings Playbook.

All of this said, Jennifer Lawrence has faced some difficulties in her career. Early on, she was asked to stand naked in a lineup and lose weight, which obviously was not an encouraging encounter for her. She was on the unfortunate end of a hacking that leaked nude photos onto the web, and she recently broke up with her partner. The poor reviews for mother! weren't especially helpful either.

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Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).