At 23, Jennifer Lawrence has reached heights most of us never even dream of. She won the Oscar for Best Actress with her second nomination, for Silver Linings Playbook. She stars in a superhero franchise and toplines another of the biggest franchises in Hollywood, The Hunger Games. Without a doubt, she’s one of the biggest stars in the world, yet has somehow managed to remain genuine, funny and unfiltered. Jennifer Lawrence isn’t only America’s sweetheart, she’s everyone’s sweetheart.

So, in short, sites like /Film usually don’t get to speak to her, especially not for a film as highly anticipated as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. But you ask nicely, expect to get turned down, and then somehow find yourself outside a hotel room, the only online outlet who’ll be speaking one on one, in person, with Hollywood’s darling. No pressure.

While I can’t gauge my performance, Lawrence did not disappoint. Even after two full days of non-stop press, Katniss Everdeen herself snuggled up on her hotel room chair, slippers and all, and spoke eloquently about the pathos in Catching Fire, its political messages, shooting with IMAX cameras, her duties as reigning Best Actress, how often she gets out to the movies, Short Term 12, “texting Fassbender” (yes, that one), why promoting X-Men movies can be better than Hunger Games and the insane Internet notion she could play a female Han Solo. Read the full interview below.

In this film, even with all the action, you get this sense the government is always there and pushing down on characters.

Yeah, and the cruelty gets to a mind-blowing level. She can’t even say goodbye to her family.

The film has a prevalent message of “rising up.” Do you think it’s something that will inspire kids to activism?

If there is a younger generation that feels like they do need to speak against something, then I hope that they do. I hope that they will. It’s hard to be one voice and be the singular, lowest, District 12,  couldn’t-get-further-away young girl. [It's hard] to just be one voice in a world that’s wrong. I think that it’s important to show how big that is, because they think we so easily become sheep, the society [as a whole] and especially the younger generation. We just kind of follow everybody in front of us and are very into doing what’s cool without having the actual political information. And so the fact  young adults love this as much as they did, that it sold as many copies as it did, was exciting and I think says a lot.

Katniss is sometimes frustrating because she’s so reluctant to be the hero. As an actress, do you find it hard to exhibit that restraint?

Yeah, I mean, some. I find it frustrating ’cause I want her to be the hero. I want her to be the, you know, ‘Of course you’re gonna do this, of course you want to lead the rebellion. Tell them that you’ll be the Mockingjay, no doubts.’ But I’m playing a real girl that is stuck. The only thing that she wants, and what makes her a true hero, is she wants as little death as possible. She doesn’t want a war to get revenge. She wants to fix the situation and I think the cruelty of the Capitol gets to a place where you can’t not do something, you know? You have to act.

You have some great one-on-one scenes with Donald Sutherland and Philip Seymour Hoffman. You’re in a position where you’re their peer. Do you geek out when you think about like ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna work with these guys?’

Yes. I did. You know, before you meet them. And then you meet them and they’re just Phil and Donald and you can have fun. But there are… I’d be lying if I didn’t say that there are ‘Pinch me’ moments every single time…when I’m doing a scene with Phil Hoffman or even having Julianne Moore on our cast now. It’s just like I’m watching them and I’m, ‘Are you guys really in our movie? Is this really happening?’ It’s really remarkable. And I of course never tell them that ‘cause, you know. But it is, it’s total pinch me moments.

Just how loud are the IMAX cameras really?

Oh my God, they’re like lawnmowers.