She's Hollywood's new 'It' girl who, at age 21, nabbed the coveted lead heroine role in this year's blockbuster "Hunger Games," but Jennifer Lawrence says that doesn't mean she fits into the typical Hollywood mold.

"In Hollywood, I'm obese," Lawrence, now 22, told Elle magazine in its December issue where she graces the cover in a skin-tight white dress under the headline, "From Indie Star to Hunger Games Bombshell."

READ MORE: Hollywood Stars' Extreme Weight Loss

"I'm considered a fat actress," she says. "I'm Val Kilmer in that one picture on the beach."

To prepare for her career-making role as Katniss Everdeen, the movie's 16-year-old heroine who is forced to fight for her life, Lawrence underwent intense training, including learning how to run properly.

READ MORE: 'Hunger Games' Jennifer Lawrence on Becoming Katniss Everdeen

"I'm pigeon-footed…so I decided to learn how to run with my feet straight and then they ended up just taping my ankles to make my feet go out," she told " Good Morning America" last March.

The movie was a blockbuster hit but Lawrence drew criticism for her full, by Hollywood standards, figure from, among others, the movie critic for the New York Times who wrote, "A few years ago Ms. Lawrence might have looked hungry enough to play Katniss, but now, at 21, her seductive, womanly figure makes a bad fit…"

Speaking to Elle, Lawrence is defiant against those critics, and any agents or casting directors who stand in her way.

"I'm never going to starve myself for a part," she says. "I don't want little girls to be like, 'Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I'm going to skip dinner'…I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong-not thin and underfed."

Fellow "It" girls Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis got slim for their ballet movie "Black Swan," and Anne Hathaway has described her "crazy" workout regimen for "Catwoman" and "living on hummus and radishes" to portray a prostitute in "Les Miserables," but Lawrence says she'll never take her acting that far.

"I eat like a caveman," Lawrence says. "I'll be the only actress who doesn't have anorexia rumors."

The Oscar-nominated actress also lets her guard down about her boyfriend, Nicholas Hoult, a fellow actor she met on the set of "X-Men," revealing she also doesn't watch her diet around him.

"We can eat Cheetos and watch beach volleyball and we turn into two perverted Homer Simpsons, like, 'Oh, she's got a nice ass,'" she says. "I never thought we'd have such different opinions on asses."

"[He] is honestly my best friend too," Lawrence tells Elle, turning more serious. "He's my favorite person to be around and makes me laugh harder than anybody."

The December issue of Elle hits newsstands Nov. 13.