Jennifer Lawrence once used bow and arrow as self-defense

Actress Jennifer Lawrence once used her bow and arrow from The Hunger Games in a bid to scare off strangers inside her mansion.

The 22 year old, who plays skilled adventurer Katniss Everdeen in the movies, had just wrapped up a practise session with her trainer when she drove into her garage and heard voices coming from her house.

Quick-thinking Lawrence picked up her archery set to defend herself from the would-be burglars, but she later discovered they were only a group of construction workers making repairs to her property.

She tells Vanity Fair magazine, "I pulled into my garage and I heard men in my house. And I was like, 'I'm not letting them take my stuff.' I had just gotten back from training, so I had the bow and arrows in the back of my car.

"I went to my car and I put this quiver on me and I had my bow and I loaded it and I'm walking up the stairs. And I look, and my patio doors were open, and there were guys working right there, and I was like, 'Heyyy, how you doin'?'"

And the actress admits her friends were disappointed by the dramatic story's ending: "They were like, 'We've got to stage someone to break into your house and you can kill them!'"