Jennifer Lawrence's Net Worth and How the Oscar Winner Made It

Jennifer Lawrence's net worth comes largely from movies she didn't really want to make. (According to The New York Times, those included the X-Men franchise and Passengers). Hopefully her upcoming No Hard Feelings was more fun to be in.

The superstar Oscar winner may have grown up in a family with means—her father owned a construction company, while her mother managed a summer camp—but despite having two mega-successful movie franchises to her name, Lawrence is still generally pretty frugal with her money. She long drove the same Volkswagen she's had since her teen years, she bargain-hunts at the supermarket, balks at mini-bar prices, and loves staying in more than going out.

"I don't ever walk around feeling famous. I walk around feeling the exact same way I have walked around my entire life," she told Fabulous. "But it's not until I talk to somebody and see in their eyes that I'm different. It makes me feel weird." She added, "I was raised to have value for money, to have respect for money, even though you have a lot of it. My family is not the kind of family that would ever let me turn into an a--hole or anything like that, so I am fortunate to have them."

Preach! That said, J. Law does have a lot of money. Find out Jennifer Lawrence's net worth and how she earned it.

Related: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Jennifer Lawrence

How did Jennifer Lawrence become famous?

As a child, Lawrence loved dressing up and performing at home, as well as in local plays at church. A talent scout discovered her while she was vacationing with her family in New York City at the age of 14 and suggested that she go into modeling and acting. Lawrence has said her mother would have initially preferred her to pursue modeling, but she was more comfortable as an actress. She dropped out of school at age 14 to pursue acting full-time and go on auditions in Los Angeles, while also working part-time as an assistant nurse at the camp her mother owns in Kentucky.

Lawrence's first role was in 2006 when she was 16 in a pilot called Company Town that never aired. She then booked small roles on Monk, Cold Case and Medium, as well as a commercial for MTV's My Super Sweet 16.

She had a regular role on The Bill Engvall Show from 2007 through 2009 as Bill Pearson's teenage daughter, Lauren.

Lawrence has said she auditioned for—and didn't get—iconic roles like Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga (which went to Kristen Stewart), Tim Burton's title character in Alice in Wonderland (Mia Wasikowska), Jules in Superbad (which went to fellow Oscar winner Emma Stone) and Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (which went to Oscar nominee Rooney Mara).

Lawrence's big breakout role was in the 2010 indie drama Winter's Bone, for which she reportedly earned $3,000 per week for a total of about $10,000—and which earned her her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She lost to Natalie Portman, who took home the trophy for Black Swan, but wasn't upset about it, telling The New York Times of the days immediately following her nod, "It was so much, so fast. I was like: 'I just want to feel like it happened. I feel like I'm busy. I feel like I'm tired, and tired of talking about myself, which is very odd.' It's such a PMS type of feeling, when something is so good that you're sad that you can't fully take it in and enjoy it."

Related: Get to Know Jennifer Lawrence's Husband Cooke Maroney

What is Jennifer Lawrence's net worth in 2024?

Jennifer Lawrence's net worth is estimated at $160 million.

How is Jennifer Lawrence so rich?

In addition to her acting career, Lawrence also has a production company, Excellent Cadaver, that she launched in 2018. She also earned a reported $15 million to $20 million in an endorsement deal with Dior. While many celebrities make money from social media, Lawrence hardly uses any social media accounts at all unless she's promoting a good cause—which actually drives her price up: She maintains the mystique (see what we did there?) of being a major movie star who speaks as if she's relatable, but is simultaneously unattainable and out of the public reach.

Related: See Inside Jennifer Lawrence’s Just Sold Multi-Million Manhattan Penthouse

How much did Jennifer Lawrence make from The Hunger Games?

Lawrence reportedly made $500,000 for her initial turn as Katniss Everdeen in the first installment of The Hunger Games in 2012, and her salary went way up thanks to that first movie's success. Lawrence made $10 million for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in 2013, then $40 million for the franchise's final two films, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2, released in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Lawrence admitted to USA Today that she almost passed on the franchise that helped make her a household name (and that earned her a big chunk of her impressive net worth)—until her mom convinced her to take on the role of the brave heroine.

"She was like, 'You're being a hypocrite because you always say you don't care about the size of the movies.' Because when I was doing indies, everybody was always like, 'Why don't you ever do a studio?' I'd say, 'Because I don't care about the size of the movie. I care about the story,'" Lawrence recalled. "And my mom was like, 'Now you have a story you like, and you're not going to do it because of the size!'"

She added, "The truth was, in the bottom of my heart, I wanted to do it. I wanted to play this character. I was scared of the aftermath, but you can’t say no to things because you're scared. You just have to go for it."

Related: 20 of the Best Quotes from The Hunger Games Movies

How much did Jennifer Lawrence get paid for American Hustle?

Lawrence reportedly made $1.25 million upfront for American Hustle, plus $250,000 in deferred compensation as well as seven box office back-end points on net profits. American Hustle had a $40 million budget. If you factor in advertising, which is usually equal to the production budget, the studio needed at least $80 million to break even. The film grossed $251.1 million worldwide. When you subtract production and marketing costs, it likely made about $170 million in grosses. Since we don't know exactly what the net profits for the film were, it's difficult to calculate how much her seven points earned her, but it's safe to assume it was at least $2 million, for a minimum total of $3.5 million.

In an essay for the now-defunct Lena Dunham Lenny newsletter, Lawrence lamented that she made less than her male co-stars in the film (whose salaries, along with Adams' and Lawrence's, were exposed by the Sony email hack). "It's hard for me to speak about my experience as a working woman because I can safely say my problems aren't exactly relatable," she wrote. "When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with d--ks, I didn't get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn't want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don't need. (I told you it wasn't relatable, don't hate me)."

She continued, "But if I'm honest with myself, I would be lying if I didn't say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn't want to seem 'difficult' or 'spoiled.' At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being 'difficult' or 'spoiled.'"

Lawrence's essay rubbed some the wrong way, not because gender wage gaps don't exist—they absolutely do—but because of the specific circumstances of this film: Lawrence worked on the set of American Hustle for 19 days. According to Deadline, co-star Jeremy Renner took home the same pay as Lawrence for roughly the same amount of workdays, but got nine back-end points. Christian Bale worked on set for 45 days and made $2.5 million up-front and nine back-end points, while Bradley Cooper worked 46 days and made the same as Bale. Amy Adams worked 45 days for $1.25 million and seven points—less than Lawrence made despite working twice as many days on set.

However, it's important to note that Lawrence, who'd recently won an Academy Award, was used quite heavily in marketing the movie—and if they were willing to make money off of her image, they likely could have thrown her an extra bone in her paycheck.

Related: Why the American Hustle Cast Didn’t Wear Vintage Costumes

How much did Jennifer Lawrence make for Red Sparrow?

Lawrence reportedly made $20 million for the 2018 movie Red Sparrow, which grossed $151.5 million worldwide and made a profit of about $12.5 million—not quite a bomb, but certainly not the numbers studios were used to from the Oscar winner.

Starring as a dancer and assassin in the spy thriller, Lawrence said appearing nude in the film was empowering for her after naked photos of her were hacked and released online—because this time, she was in control.

"The insecurity and fear of being judged for getting nude, what I went through, should that dictate decisions I make for the rest of my life? This movie changed that and I didn't even realize how important changing that mentality was until it was done," she told Variety. "But I also really challenged myself in ways that I never really had before. The foreign accent. The dancing. It was really taking on a very different leaf." She added of the process, "We talked about it extensively, which was really important for showing up on the day and there being no surprises. I knew exactly what was going on and also there was one moment [director Francis Lawrence, no relation] came out to give me a note and just looked at me like I had clothes, and then I just felt like I had clothes on. I was surrounded by professionals and everybody was completely professional."

How much did Jennifer Lawrence make for Silver Linings Playbook?

Lawrence reportedly made $4 million for Silver Linings Playbook, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar. Lawrence auditioned for the role from her parents' Kentucky home over Skype, and director David O. Russell was blown away.

"She showed up, and she was like a raw talent with no neurosis and no self-consciousness. So she was completely fearless," he told Vanity Fair. "She'd come into a scene like a weather system, and leave me and Bob [Robert De Niro] and Bradley [Cooper] and Jacki [Weaver] like, 'Wow!' She has a certain energy that hasn’t been in movies in a while. It is simultaneously young and old, and loose but powerful and focused. I remember feeling, when we shot [Lawrence's] introduction, there was an awareness that we were introducing a new talent and a new energy that felt very special. It felt, 'Who's this person?'"