When Imogen Ludwin was a little girl, she never thought she would have to deal with anything in her life. It would always be rainbows, kittens and butterflies for the entirety of her life span. She could do anything and go anywhere, she could be anyone that she ever wanted to be. It never occurred to her that she would have to be the supporter of her family. That was something that she didn't think would happen. It wasn't that she hated her family, that wasn't the thing. Her mother just had a very set out plan for her children. Imogen was cute and little, and it was that point where she could push her child into doing things to help support the family. It was almost as if she did not want to take the toll for the family herself, having been through the lifestyle and, once Imogen's father had killed himself (something that Imogen had never really known about due to her age at the time and her not having that connection with her father), it was almost as if Maureen had given up her progression to become something in the land of Hollywood. Instead, she had turned to her youngest daughter.

It had happened to be a day like no other. Family lunch at McDonald's when a man had come up to Maureen and told her just how lovely her daughter was. It could have been any of the three and in 1993, no one thought anything of it. Sure, the woman had connections to use in the business to get her children going, but it was easier when they approached you, right? He'd given Maureen a card, having wanted to have her youngest daughter (who would have thought that, really) audition for a film that he was producing. Imogen hadn't wanted to do it. That was the key element in the situation. Imogen had wanted to be a child, to run free with herself and just have fun. It wasn't something she wanted to do in the long run, at least not at that time in her life. Eventually she would give in and go with the want to do as her older sister, Ava, would eventually want to do for a lifetime. Imogen had chosen not to do it. Imogen had not wanted to act for a lifetime like Ava had volunteered to do. It was amazing how much Ava had taken on just to get her sister out of it.

The thing was, all of that didn't happen until after the completion of The Little Rascals, where Imogen had been given the role of Darla. But after that, it was complete. She could do what she wanted and not have to worry about being on set. She didn't have to worry about not looking at the camera all of the time. She didn't have to worry about being on time. She didn't have to worry about learning lines and remembering things that she just didn't want to remember. It was like she had been given her life back, solely because her mother had accepted Ava as the actress in the family while Imogen and Evelyne would sit back and do childlike things. They could play, have parties and be themselves while their oldest sister worked. Maybe it didn't seem fair at the time, but it seemed fair in her mind. It seemed like an okay thing to do, to accomplish, to feel.

For years, Imogen lived her life to the fullest. She went to school and lived her life. The years were long and they were fun. Imogen got to travel during the summers to be with her sister and to see new places, places that she never in a million years thought she would be able to see. Visit, take pictures, write in her diary about how much she truly loved them. It was the epitome of a perfect life. The thing was, the more and more she got exposed to that life again, the more and more she realized how much she had missed it. She realized that she missed the fact that she could be anybody and do anything. She didn't need someone to tell her that, or to convince her otherwise. It was in 2003, when she was 14 years old, that Imogen had that revelation and realized just what she wanted to do, and this time perhaps for good. She wanted to act. She wanted to be somebody else, and to have fun doing everything, being someone new and doing whatever it was that she wanted to do with her life. It was hers, after all.

Of course, she knew it wasn't going to be handed back to her by any means. She knew that she would need to work for it, and that was what she was destined to do. Imogen had to work through the ranks, starting off doing some television cameos here and there, and childish films that wouldn't be something that she wanted to do forever. They weren't always tiny roles, no, but they were things that she never thought she would go for in general. They were something that she thought she could just do and then eventually get handed something big, or even better, something big would just hand in her lap. It took her several years (and going through different channels, like being part of a Disney Channel movie, and being a part of a cancelled television program) until she found things. Her acting, too, had improved over the years. She learned and she tried, she dug her fingers into things and had to let them go with ease simply because there was no doubt that she would not be able to progress in life if she weren't a good enough actress to do so.

It was in 2009 that she landed the lead role of Kate Gregson in "The United States of Tara" that she finally felt that she had hit gold. It was a role that she had tried out for for months, and months, and didn't know she was going to get, and had no faith in herself what so ever at that. It wasn't as if she thought too highly of herself in that regard. Imogen just wanted to do a good job, and she felt she did. It wasn't an easy series to do, but she knew that she would be able to progress better. It was just a stepping stone that she needed to take to get somewhere else. That same year, she had landed a sort of action filled comedy film, Whip It!, as the lead female as well. All the hard work was paying off, really it was! She couldn't see herself as doing anything less or more than what she was doing, not to mention that she was slowly building herself up. Comedy seemed to be her game, it did. There were going to be others, of course, because one couldn't rely on comedy forever, and there were only so many jokes that someone could make before settling down into something to do in the long run.

For Imogen Ludwin, that would be something that would occur in 2012, the biggest franchise she would ever be able to touch. Sure, the years before had been something new (the year before she'd done her first ever horror film, though it did retain some comedy within it; as well as another comedy film in Easy A, which was something she would forever be proud of simply because it was one of her biggest roles to date). All the studying and trying, auditioning and ultimately failing would be paying off in 2012 when she was named as Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games. Of course, it was something that would come with a price -- namely the fact that she would be unable to live up to the hype, simply because she wasn't what the fans had wanted. But the fact of the matter had been that she had been the choice, the one that they chose and wanted for the role, and that was something she would hold onto for the rest of her life.