While filming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Jennifer Lawrence revealed she temporarily lost hearing in one ear, and not for a few hours. It lasted months.
Back in 2012, during a promo run for Catching Fire, Lawrence opened up about the bizarre and painful moment (via Vanity Fair). “I went deaf in one ear for months. But that wasn’t actually physically challenging. It was just ear challenging because I got all of these ear infections from the diving and the water and all of that stuff. And then a jet from one of the cornucopia scenes punctured my eardrum.”
Yep, while Katniss was dodging poison fog and mutant monkeys on screen, Lawrence was fighting off ear infections off-screen. The waterwork-heavy scenes took a toll, and one misdirected jet blast sealed the deal with a punctured eardrum. That wasn’t even a special effect, just brutal, real-life movie-making.
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What made it even wilder? Katniss herself suffered a similar injury in the original Hunger Games book. In Suzanne Collins’ version, an explosion near the Careers’ food stash left Katniss half-deaf. Her ear bled. She lost hearing. It wasn’t permanent, but it was a plot point. Life imitated fiction, and Lawrence found herself in the exact same situation.
But her behind-the-scenes struggles didn’t end there. While promoting Catching Fire in 2013, Lawrence also battled an unexplained health scare. During her Good Morning America interview, she said she experienced stomach pain for weeks and finally decided to get checked. “Then I finally had a day where I was like no I need to get this looked at.” No clear diagnosis followed. Instead, Lawrence joked about media rumors claiming it was just gas, and decided to run with it.
Her physical setbacks didn’t slow her down, though. Not then, and not years later. In 2021, she returned to high-stakes sets with Don’t Look Up, the Netflix disaster comedy directed by Adam McKay. While filming with Timothée Chalamet, an explosion scene led to flying glass and minor injuries. Production shut down briefly, but she bounced back the following Monday like a champ.
In Don’t Look Up, Lawrence played Kate Dibiasky, a grad student who discovered a doomsday comet no one took seriously. The movie leaned into satire, but off-camera, it came with its own risks too. Between that set and the arena chaos of Panem, Lawrence stayed no stranger to stunts, explosions, or unexpected injuries.
Through it all, she proved she wasn’t just playing a fighter, she was one. Deafness, mystery illnesses, flying glass, she faced it all head-on. And somehow, she still made us believe Katniss could survive anything. Turns out, Jennifer Lawrence could too.
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