http://variety.com/2015/film/news/jennifer-lawrence-before-hunger-games-1201643853/

Her work before the first film in 2012 was also pretty interesting, though less scrupulously documented.

She grew up in Louisville, went to New York during spring break at age 14, and persuaded her parents to allow a summer there to explore acting. On July 17, 2007, Variety‘s Brian Lowry reviewed a new Bill Engvall sitcom, “The Bill Engvall Show,” which was hoping to tap into his “blue collar comedy” audience. The standup comic played a family counselor who couldn’t control own family, including a teen daughter (Lawrence). Lowry wrote that the show was a “decidedly slim and rarely funny,” and there was no mention of the actress beyond the credits.

http://www.looper.com/13798/embarrassing-early-roles-big-time-actors/

Jennifer Lawrence on "The Bill Engvall Show"

Lawrence was Oscar-nominated the first time she ever starred in a movie (Winter's Bone in 2009). She paid her dues on TV, but she certainly didn't pay them for long. From 2007 to 2009 she played the generic teen daughter on the generic TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show. It starred that redneck comedy guy. No, not the "you might be a redneck if" comedian. No, not the "git-r-done" one. The "here's your sign" guy.

Read More: http://www.looper.com/13798/embarrassing-early-roles-big-time-actors/?utm_campaign=clip

Glad she moved on from tv.

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/jennifer-lawrence-once-told-confused-155333214.html

With apologies to fans of The Bill Engvall Show, Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t exactly a household name when she was nominated for an Oscar for her stunning work in 2010’s Winter’s Bone. It wasn’t her first film, though. In 2008, Lawrence starred in three movies, Garden Party, Poker House, and The Burning Plain, in which she acted alongside Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. You probably haven’t seen The Burning Plain, despite that stacked cast, because it’s not very good. But it did inspire a very good story.

Lawrence is currently making the late-night rounds for X-Men Apocalypse, including stops on The Graham Norton Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she told the host about a promotional interview she did for The Burning Plain. Lawrence informed a room full of journalists that fellow Oscar winner Basinger (who has a small, but memorable role in The Nice Guys) wouldn’t be there that day. When someone asked where she was, Lawrence replied, “You didn’t hear? Kim died.” Her comment was not well received.

“There was like a beat while it got translated and then it was like [explosion noise],” J-Law said as Fallon collapsed laughing. “And then I got ripped off the stage, thrown into media training, which was hilarious ‘cause I was like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.” (Via)
Lawrence could have danced — and killed Kim Basinger — all night.