Hollywood starlet Jennifer Lawrence garnered plenty of press attention when she was filming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire throughout the Atlanta area this past fall.
But the Golden Globe-winning actress also spent some down time in the Virginia Highland and Druid Hills communities with a Vanity Fair magazine writer for this month's cover story. Among the spots she discussed in the story: the Fernbank Museum of Natural History and a "taqueria" restaurant near Emory University.
Vanity Fair hasn't posted the story online, so if you want the full story, you'll have to pick it up at your local newstand. But here's some of the hyperlocal flavor.
First up, the Fernbank Museum, which Lawrence said she wanted to visit to see the Genghis Khan exhibit since he's the third most famous archer of all time, and Lawrence's Hunger Games heroine, Katniss, is also an archer.
We strode past a Giganotosaurus skeleton on our way into the Genghis Khan rooms. We stood on top of a map that showed how the 13th-century Mongols conquered Beijing and Baghdad. "I have a hard time imagining the soldier mentality," [Lawrence] said. "I wonder if they sat around the campfire and said, 'Dude. We already conquered Baghdad. Do we really have to keep fighting?'"
We stepped into a dark corner. There, in a glass case, lay the 700-year-old mummified corpse of a Mongolian woman, desiccated and browned with time. Lawrence gazed awhile. "It looks like turkey skin," she said.
Later on:
We got into our rental cars and drove to the foot of the Emory University campus. Lawrence drew stares as we walked toward a taqueria. I said she must be more recognizable with the Katniss-colored hair, and she said, "I have to get it dyed every two days or the blond pokes out." At the table, she ordered a beef burrito.