Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class is announcing new members faster than the Sugababes on Lucozade energy tablets. The latest bright young thing to join the director's prequel to the X-Men trilogy is Jennifer Lawrence, star of this year's highly acclaimed indie Winter's Bone.

The Hollywood Reporter is saying that the 19 year-old Lawrence will play Mystique the shape-shifting, comely, evil mutant previously played by Rebecca Romijn. The new film is set to begin shooting in London in a few weeks and the hotly tipped Lawrence will join the likes of James McAvoy as Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Nicholas Hoult as Beast and Kevin Bacon, who has just been announced as the main villain. The rest of the cast should be announced at Comic-Con.