Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence is to take a year-long break from the movie business, according to Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Speaking to the Sun on Sunday (paywall) Weinstein said the exhausted star of dystopian sci fi saga The Hunger Games and comedy Silver Linings Playbook would be taking a well-deserved rest after an incredibly busy period of filming.

"Jennifer is too nice and will do people favours and agrees to do a movie like American Hustle when she could have had a rest," said Weinstein. "She signed on to do Hunger Games when she was young and wouldn't have realised how much it would dominate her life. But she's a professional and always will be."

The producer said Lawrence, who took the best actress Oscar last year for her turn in David O Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, had every right to give last week's Baftas a miss. The 23-year-old was unable to attend despite taking the best supporting actress prize for Russell's followup American Hustle. "It's been non-stop for her and she deserves a rest," said Weinstein.

Lawrence is a frontrunner to take the best supporting actress prize for American Hustle at the Oscars next month. She is due to appear in the final two Hunger Games films, Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2, between now and 2015, and also has comic-book epic X-Men: Days of Future Past due out this year. Other upcoming roles include the lead in Suzanne Bier's Depression-era drama Serena and a part in the comedy sequel Dumb and Dumber To.

Weinstein, who worked with Lawrence on Silver Linings Playbook, also put paid to suggestions he would stop collaborating with Quentin Tarantino during the interview. The producer, who has been Tarantino's biggest supporter since the days of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, recently said he planned to stop working on films which featured heavy gun violence due to his political views on the subject.

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