Lynsey Addario — Photographer Jennifer Lawrence Wanted

Lynsey Addario is a war photographer whose memoir, It’s What I Do, created bidding frenzy in Hollywood ultimately won by Steven Spielberg and Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence will play Addario, Spielberg will direct. (Reese Witherspoon and Natalie Portman were also reportedly candidates for the Addario role.) Addario has photographed the most dangerous places on earth–Afghanistan, Iraq, the Congo, Darfur and more–bringing back extraordinary graphic testimony of atrocities. She has also specialized in showing the lives of women in repressive societies. And the lives of children at risk.

In 2011 Addario was one of four New York Times journalists held captive by the Libyan government and later released. A riveting article by Addario ran in the New York Time Magazine after the incident, inflaming interest in her story. Addario has won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism and a MacArthur “Genius” grant. Addario had no photography training when she began her career–at the Buenos Aires Herald. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1995.

Addario’s memoir is here: It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War