Jennifer Lawrence claims she was the first woman to ever be the lead in an action movie

Jennifer Lawrence has made a bold claim that doesn't really stack up with the facts.

During Variety's Actors on Actors segment, Lawrence sat down with Viola Davis to discuss their experiences in the entertainment industry.

The 32-year-old said it was a landmark moment when she nabbed the role of Katniss Everdeen for the 2012 movie The Hunger Games.

"I remember when I was doing Hunger Games, nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work," she told Davis.

"Because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead."

Lawrence continued: "And it just makes me so happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every one of those beliefs, and proves that it is just a lie to keep certain people out of the movies.

"To keep certain people in the same positions that they’ve always been in."

Now, hold on a minute.

There's no denying it was huge to have Katniss' story played out on the big screen and there's absolutely no doubt it was a huge Hollywood blockbuster.

But, there have been plenty of female leads in an action movies before Jennifer Lawrence.

Paramount Pictures

While everyone will have a different definition of what constitutes an 'action movie' these days, but you can go as far back as 1979 when Sigourney Weaver starred as Ellen Ripley in the Alien movie.

Okay, some people might say that was more sci-fi than action, but you can't deny her walking into a room seven years later yelling 'get away from her you b***h' in Aliens isn't action.

Angelina Jolie starred in not one but two Tomb Raider films (2001 and 2003 respectively) before there was even a whiff of a Hunger Games movie.

Similarly, she also was the lead in Wanted (2008) and Salt (2010).

Uma Thurman was an unstoppable assassin as she played The Bride in the Kill Bill films (2003 and 2004).

Saoirse Ronan shined in the 2011 movie Hanna, where she was cast as a killing machine tasked with taking out a senior intelligence agent.

Michelle Yeoh was also incredible in the 2000 epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The list goes on.

There are plenty of examples where a woman has been the lead in an action movie well before The Hunger Games.

Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Jennifer Lawrence

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Senior Journalist at LADbible. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign. He is in charge of the LADbible Australia editorial content and social presence.

@stewartperrie