For her new film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, actress Jennifer Lawrence recorded a song for the soundtrack, which hit the Top 40 music chart in the United Kingdom.
The song, entitled “The Hanging Tree,” features Lawrence’s vocals, and has charted at #14, according to the BBC. It will be revealed on Wednesday if the track breaks the U.S. Top 40 Hot 100 chart.
Mockingjay, Part 1 director Francis Lawrence claims that the Oscar-winning actress, 24, was reluctant to sing the song herself. The director commented, “I knew she didn’t love the idea of singing, but I didn’t realize how nervous she was until when we started the first take, and she was in tears. Not totally broken down, but she was unhappy. She would have much rather we used somebody else’s voice. I think she said she wanted Lorde (who sings the movie’s theme song) to do it!”
Here is “The Hanging Tree”:
Commenting on how Lawrence’s vocals sound similar to her speaking voice, the director added, “It shouldn’t sound like a professional. It should sound like a real girl singing. So she did it. She did it all day. And she has a really cool sound to her voice. There’s kind of a raspy texture to it. So it was not terrible in the slightest.”
Here is the trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1:
According to studio estimates, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 raked in roughly $83 million during the five-day Thanksgiving holiday and $57 million for the three-day weekend. Since opening last weekend, Mockingjay has earned about $480 million worldwide.
Fans take to Twitter to discuss Lawrence’s new track:
i want the hanging tree song in mockingjay to become more famous than the cups song in pitch perfect
— kcho (@offlinelame) November 30, 2014
When one of your friends tells you that they think jen is a really good singer and that they love the hanging tree pic.twitter.com/gAzs4jLkJZ
— audrey | MJ X2 (@RegalMockingjay) November 30, 2014
I'm actually obsessed with the hanging tree song from mockingjay o
— beth (@legallydevonne) November 30, 2014
Regarding Jennifer Lawrence and Twitter, the actress recently opened up on her views regarding social media.
“I will never get Twitter. I’m not very good on phone or technology. I cannot really keep up with emails so the idea of Twitter is so unthinkable to me. I don’t really understand what it is. It’s like this weird enigma that people talk about. It’s fine. I respect that,” Lawrence remarked.