David O. Russell Compares Jennifer Lawrence's Hunger Games Film Commitment to Slavery

American Hustle director thinks actress deserves "breathing room" after a successful 2013

If it seems like Jennifer Lawrence is everywhere these days, it's because she is.

The two-time Golden Globe winner spent the latter half of 2013 promoting The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second of four installments in the blockbuster movie franchise, before turning her attention to American Hustle, the '70s crime comedy costarring Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner.

According to David O. Russell, who directed Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, the 23-year-old actress deserves a break—particularly in relation to her Hunger Games schedule.

"I personally think they should give her a bit of breathing room over there because they're printing money," he told The New York Daily News' Confidenti@l on Friday, Jan. 10. "But she's a very alive person."

"I'll tell you what it is about that girl—talk about 12 years of slavery, that's what the franchise is," the screenwriter continued. "And I'm going to get in so much trouble for saying that." Russell, 55, also compared The Hunger Games to a "hamster wheel" and claimed Lawrence takes on more artistic roles as a "vacation" from her more commercial movies. (She next appears in X-Men: Days of Future Past.)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the top-grossing film of 2013, with $409.4 million in North American ticket sales through Jan. 9. Lawrence—who will likely earn her third Oscar nomination on Thursday, Jan. 16—has not publicly complained about her work schedule. She does, however, have trouble being in the spotlight so often.

"The main thing is the way people look at you and talk to you, because you don't feel any different," she said on Barbara Walters 10 Most Fascinating People special. "A light never went off, like 'Ok, I'm a new me.' So it's hard when people treat you differently. You don't feel any differently. It's alienating."

"You feel like a zoo animal or something," the Kentucky native said of life in the public eye. "I don't know what it is. It's something in somebody's eyes. It's like not connecting, not making eye contact sometimes. And now I'm surrounded by people all the time, and I can be so lonely when everyone goes. But I have to remind myself it's just being alone, it's not lonely."