This article contains mild spoilers for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
It’s been eight years sinceJennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen brought down the Capitol inThe Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2and now audiences are preparing to step back into the arena for the prequel film,The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. While Lawrence was already chipping away at becoming a household name, thanks to her Academy Award-nominated performance inWinter’s Bone, the franchise solidified her status as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after performers. The call sheet also boasted the likes ofWoody Harrelson,Donald Sutherland, andElizabeth Banksandintroduced the world to up-and-coming talentssuch asJack Quaid(The Boys),Amandla Stenberg(Bodies Bodies Bodies), andIsabelle Fuhrman(theOrphanfranchise). During an interview with Collider’sPerri Nemiroff, the film’s director,Francis Lawrencetold prospective audiences which stars to keep an eye out for in the upcoming film.
After Nemiroff asked Lawrence to choose one tribute from the 10th Hunger Games toshine the spotlight onduring his interview, the director responded, “Jeez, only one?” to which Nemiroff gave him free rein to brag about as many as he wanted. “I’ll give you two. I’ll give you three, actually,” Lawrence said, upping the ante. “So one isIrene[Böhm] and she plays Lamina. She blows me away. I basically watched her grow up because I’m a fan ofBabylon Berlin, and she plays the younger sister to the lead actress in that and grew up sort of making the series.” Already knowing that he wanted to work with Böhm, it sounds like the young star was a shoo-in forThe Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, but there’s just one catch as she doesn’t speak throughout the film. “[She] came to us and doesn’t say a word in our movie,” Lawrence reveals, adding that the actress “has the most amazing face, is so talented, and was so game, especially running around up on top of that crossbeam. She’s great.”
Along with Böhm, Lawrence says that another standout among thetributeswasSofia Sanchez. “[She’s] the young girl who lasts to the end of the Games who has Down Syndrome, and she’s just an amazing actress and an amazing kid,” he said of the performer, adding, “Everybody fell in love with her.” Elsewhere in the arena the director named his last “must-watch” performance which is given byDimitri Abold. “[Abold], who plays Reaper, is also a phenomenal actor,”the filmmakersaid. “He would improvise a lot, and I think we just got a lot of great emotion and strength and kind of nobility from him… So, I think those three are big standouts for me.”
Mixing a fair share of well-known stars in with the up-and-comers,The Hunger Gamesprequel filmfeatures a stacked cast that includesRachel Zegler(West Side Story),Tom Blyth(Benediction),Hunter Schafer(Euphoria),Jason Schwartzman(The Darjeeling Limited),Peter Dinklage(Game of Thrones),Viola Davis(How to Get Away with Murder),Josh Andrés Rivera(West Side Story), and more. The perfect man for the job of telling how the brutal games came to be, Lawrence was the helmer behind both parts ofThe Hunger Games: MockingjayandThe Hunger Games: Catching Fire. He’s also known for his vision on projects includingI Am LegendandConstantine, the latter of which served as his directorial debut.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakesarrives in theaters on November 17. Check out advanced tickets via the link below.
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Watch Nemiroff’s full conversation with Lawrence below.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakesfollows a young Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) - the last hope for the once-proud Snow family - who is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from the impoverished District 12 for the 10th Hunger Games. Snow sets out on a race against time to survive and reveal if he will become a songbird or a snake.
