Jennifer Lawrence’s First Role Involved Tormenting Tony Shalhoub’s Monk

Jennifer Lawrence got her start on TV with a promo for MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16,” before landing additional early credits, including a starring role on “The Bill Engvall Show” and a guest appearance on a 2006 episode of “Monk.” In Season 5, Episode 3, “Mr. Monk and the Big Game,” Lawrence plays a high school basketball team mascot in a cougar costume who jumps on the back of Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) during a tense moment in a championship game. The rightfully annoyed investigator quickly waves her away and returns his attention to the court.

Monk joins the Cougars during a murder investigation, and Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard) temporarily takes over as the team’s coach for the championship game, with Monk assisting her. After accosting Monk on the court, Lawrence appears unmasked in the locker room and exchanges a few words with Natalie. IMDb credits her only as “Mascot,” though Natalie addresses her as “Jen.” The series ended in 2009, but Shalhoub and Howard reprised their roles for a 2023 Peacock feature, “Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie.”

Lawrence has admitted that recalling her appearance on “Monk” brings up an embarrassing memory. On a 2013 episode of “Conan,” Lawrence told host Conan O’Brien that she initially thought she had been cast in a more significant role and talked enthusiastically about it with friends from her church in Los Angeles. “Everybody was like, ‘Oh, we can’t wait to watch it.’ [I] find out I’m not playing that part, I’m the mascot, and so everybody watched it after I just told them I was going to have this great, huge part, and I was just the mascot. I’ve never been back to church since.” 

That early misstep didn’t slow Lawrence down for long. She left school and bid her parents goodbye, moving into a run-down New York apartment as she built her acting resume. In a 2015 interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” she said, “I think that that was the turning point for my dad, letting me do this, because he came and saw the conditions I was living in. No hot water, there was no kitchen, it was a closet with a hot plate … that’s when my parents were like, ‘Yeah, I think she really, really wants to do this.'”