Jennifer Lawrence is already well-known as one of the most popular and approachable stars in Hollywood. You would never know that during her childhood, she suffered from social anxiety, and even though she had some friends, she hard a hard time coming out of her shell and just being herself. According to Us Weekly, her mother noticed the change in her first.

“My nickname was ‘Nitro,’ as in nitroglycerin,” she tells the Madame Figaro (translated from French). “I was hyperactive, curious about everything. When my mother told me about my childhood, she always told me there was like a light in me, a spark that inspired me constantly. When I entered school, the light went out. We never knew what it was, a kind of social anxiety. But I had friends.”

She tried to see a therapist, among other things, but nothing seemed to help her overcome her paralyzing anxieties. Then one day, she discovered acting, and the rest is history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keT5CRhhy84

“One day, I begged my parents to take me to a casting,” the actress tells the mag. “We went to New York, and that’s where I started acting. Just on stage, my mother saw the change that was taking place in me. She saw my anxieties disappear. She found her daughter, the one who had this light and joy before school.”

She added, “I finally found a way [to] open the door to a universe that I understood, that was good for me and made me happy, because I felt capable, whereas before I felt worthless,” she says.

It’s hard to imagine her feeling worthless with all the love that comes her way. Especially from many of her co-stars, like Donald Sutherland. According to E!, the seasoned actor can’t get enough of his young counterpart.

“She’s a delivery system for the truth,” he said of her, while they were promoting Catching Fire. “She channels epiphanies. She’s brilliant, she’s brilliant. She’s unlike other performers.”
He added, “When I work with her, between Katniss Everdeen and Coriolanus Snow, it’s a battle I can taste, eat—I love it!”

He’s not the only one that likes to gush about her, “She’s still the same ole girl,” her X Men costar James McAvoy said earlier this year. “We love Jennifer, she’s amazing. Properly amazing.”

Perhaps it is her struggle that has allowed her to remain so down-to-earth?

Image via youtube