Jennifer Lawrence returns to work under the helm of her Hunger Games director, Francis Lawrence, in the challenging role of a reluctant Russian operative in Red Sparrow, based on the 2013 book by ex-CIA operative Jason Matthews. Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, a rising young Bolshoi ballerina who suffers a debilitating injury and, facing a bleak future, chooses to take the only option offered to her, entering the state-run Sparrow School, who brutally trains a new generation of ruthless sexually manipulative spies.

HFPA member Alessandra Venezia sat down with Lawrence and her co-star, Australian actor Joel Edgerton in London for this exclusive interview.