Jennifer Lawrence and Jeremy Renner co-star in the 2013 film American Hustle, but it seems they share an even closer bond in real life.
According to People, researchers at Ancestry.com found that Lawrence and Renner are actually fifth cousins, once removed.
How did Ancestry make this discovery? It was a complete accident. The site was trying to see if Lawrence and Hunger Games co-star Josh Hutcherson are related, since they both have roots in Kentucky. Researchers didn't find any relation, but they kept the actors' family trees on file.
"Later, we were researching Jeremy Renner and noticed he had a Tague family line from Kentucky, which looked familiar," Michelle Ercanbrack, a family historian at Ancestry, told People. "Once we realized Jennifer Lawrence had the same family in her tree, finding the relationship between the two was not only quick, it was really close."
Ercanbrack explains that Renner and Lawrence share an ancestor in Kentucky, farmer Robert Tague, who is Lawrence's fifth great-grandfather, while he's Renner's fourth. And the removed? Well, that just means Lawrence, who is 25 years old, is a generation younger than Renner, who is 44.
While they may not be planning to get together for any family reunions — especially after those comments Renner made about it not being his job to help his female co-stars get paid more — Ercanbrack believes genetics may explain each of their movie choices.
"The similarities between the two are striking," Ercanbrack said of the stars, who both have ancestors that fought in the American Revolutionary War. "Both have deep Kentucky roots, both are parts of wildly successful franchises, and both play family-oriented, freedom-fighting archers."
There's certainly no denying the fact that those are some good genes.
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