The second time’s the charm for Jennifer Lawrence. The 22-year-old Kentucky native landed the lead actress Oscar statuette Sunday for her tragicomic performance as an emotionally bruised widow in “Silver Linings Playbook.”
Her win comes a month after Lawrence picked up the Golden Globe for actress in a comedic movie and just two years after the actress’ breakthrough performance in “Winter’s Bone” - the role that first put her on the academy’s lead actress balloting list.
Oscars 2013: Nominee list | Ballot | Trivia | Timeline
To claim the award, she beat out “Amour” star Emmanuelle Riva as an elderly stroke victim facing the prospect of death, Jessica Chastain’s turn as a self-sacrificing CIA analyst who helps bring down Osama bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty, ” Naomi Watts’ anguished performance as a mother struggling to reunite her family in the tsunami drama “The Impossible” and first-time actress Quvenzhané Wallis – age 9 - who plays a young bayou dweller possessed of mythical powers in “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”