Jennifer Lawrence Accidentally Took Ambien On Hunger Games Movie & Her Hallucinations Upset A Co-Star

Jennifer Lawrence just admitted that she took Ambien by mistake while filming one of The Hunger Games movies, and the situation didn’t sit well with one of her fellow cast members. Before becoming a household name in The Hunger Games franchise, Lawrence earned an Oscar nomination for Winter’s Bone and eventually won for Silver Linings Playbook.

However, it was her portrayal of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games that catapulted her career into the stratosphere.

Unfortunately for her, filming the book-to-screen adaptations wasn’t always smooth sailing, as she explained to Leonardo DiCaprio during Variety‘s Actors on Actors series.

At one point during their conversation, Lawrence revealed that while filming the dance scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman (who played Plutarch Heavensbee) for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, she accidentally took an Ambien that morning, thinking it was a different type of medication.

Lawrence ended up “hallucinating” while filming her scene with Hoffman. One of her co-stars wasn’t happy at all. Elizabeth Banks, who played Effie Trinket, got “really annoyed” with Lawrence. Thinking back, the lead star doesn’t think Banks was even aware that she was on Ambien.

“I also once took an Ambien in the morning, thinking it was something else. It was a dance scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman on the second Hunger Games movie. I was hallucinating. Elizabeth Banks got really annoyed with me. Maybe she didn’t know that I was on an Ambien.”

Lawrence also admitted that while filming the spy thriller Red Sparrow, she “took an Adderall instead of a sleeping pill.” She wasn’t able to sleep at all after that and ended up “taking hot showers in a panic.”

Lawrence has a difficult time functioning without sleep (in fact, she’s “obsessive about sleep” when filming), so that mixup was a horrible incident for her during the production of Red Sparrow.

“You and I are both obsessive about sleep when we’re working, like counting the hours. When I did Red Sparrow, I took an Adderall instead of a sleeping pill, and then I didn’t sleep all night. I was taking hot showers in a panic. I am not somebody who can function without sleep. And then I had to say the phrase “Senate Armed Services Committee” in a Russian accent. That sucked.”

After wrapping up the four-film Hunger Games series in 2015, Lawrence went on to star in such films as Joy, X-Men: Apocalypse, Mother!, Red Sparrow, Don’t Look Up, No Hard Feelings and Die My Love.

She and Hunger Games co-star Josh Hutcherson are returning to Panem in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which releases in theaters on November 20, 2026.

Speaking of future projects, Variety‘s Actors on Actors series was the perfect opportunity for Lawrence and DiCaprio to chat with each other about their lives and careers because the two actors will be headlining Martin Scorsese’s next movie, What Happens at Night.

The storyline revolves around a married couple who head to Europe intending to adopt a baby. However, their hotel contains mysterious and eccentric characters who upend their plans.

During their Actors on Actors conversation, the Titanic star gave Lawrence advice on what it’s like working with the acclaimed director, since DiCaprio has starred in several films by Scorsese, including Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street and Killers of the Flower Moon.

After The Hunger Games, hopefully, Lawrence doesn’t end up having another unfortunate incident on the set of What Happens at Night. Since both she and DiCaprio are “obsessive” about getting enough sleep at night, they’ll likely ensure production goes smoothly so they can deliver strong performances and live up to the high expectations of starring in a Scorsese film.