She has fallen over in public more than a few times and is apparently not ashamed of a bit of garlic breath, but these refreshingly ordinary human qualities haven't stopped Jennifer Lawrence's co-star Donald Sutherland comparing her to figures of epic historical proportions.

Sutherland, who plays President Snow in the Hunger Games series, gushed to E!Online that Lawrence is nothing short of a genius and an actor of such significance she can be compared to Jesus Christ or Joan of Arc, both of whom were executed for their causes.

"When I worked with her, I realised the child was a genius," said Sutherland. 

"She's the right person at the right time in the sense of Joan of Arc and Jesus Christ, any genius, in that sense."

Sutherland was speaking on the red carpet at the premiere of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, which releases to theatres on November 21.

He continued: "She has the ability as an actor to tell the truth out of the material and that truth is immediately recognisable with everybody because it hits you in your heart, your solar plexus and your mind.

"And she has the genius of person to be not affected by all of this. She's just a real girl."

That realness was laid bare this week by fellow Mockingjay star and good friend Liam Hemsworth, who said whenever they had a kissing scene to shoot, Lawrence would make a point of eating garlic, tuna fish or something else disgusting.

"Right before the scene she'd be like, 'Yeah, I ate tuna,' or 'I had garlic, and I didn't brush my teeth.'  And I'd be like, 'Fantastic, I can't wait to get in there and taste it!" he told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show.