Hunger Games’ director on casting Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth

Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson’s performances as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark outlined the unique Hunger Games films. But the prequel film, set 64 years earlier than Katniss and Peeta’s story, wanted a brand new set of actors who may maintain their very own.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is an origin story for Panem’s dictator, President Coriolanus Snow. It takes followers again to a time when Coriolanus was simply an bold younger scholar who had not but develop into the cutthroat politician we see in the principle books and films. His story is entwined with that of Lucy Gray Baird, the District 12 Tribute he’s assigned to mentor, whose pure aptitude for showmanship and charming songs encourage him to show the brutal Hunger Games into extra of a flashy spectacle.

Director Francis Lawrence tells Polygon the filmmakers had been searching for recent faces when it got here to the lead roles. Lots of actors auditioned for the position of Snow, particularly, however Lawrence says Billy the Kid star Tom Blyth instantly “blew everybody out of the water.”

“Part of it is physical,” he admits. “He has those great blue eyes — [you] could see in his face, Okay, I could buy that maybe 65 years later, he could turn into Donald Sutherland.”

Image: Lionsgate Films

Image: Lionsgate

But it wasn’t nearly how feasibly Blyth may seem like a youthful Donald Sutherland. Whoever landed the position needed to stroll a line between being charming and conniving, somebody you need to root for, but aren’t stunned once they find yourself turning right into a villain. Blyth introduced his performing chops to the position, and Lawrence was regularly impressed all through filming.

“Telling a story about a young man’s descent into darkness, you have to have somebody that can earn the audience’s empathy, but then believably also descend into that darkness,” Lawrence says. “[Blyth] is really, really good. This sort of charisma continued to astound me. His sense of control in his performance and nuance also astounded me. That really caught me off guard and surprised me in a fantastic way.”

Blyth stood out in auditions, however when it got here to casting District 12 songstress Lucy Gray, Lawrence had a primary alternative in thoughts from the get-go. Rachel Zegler’s performing and singing in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story made her Lawrence’s prime contender for the position.

“So she and I met, I think, for four hours or something the first time, and had a great chat about the book and about the character and about the music,” Lawrence says. “I just knew she was the one right away.”

Photo: Murray Close/Lionsgate

An enormous a part of Lucy Gray’s character includes music. She’s a member of the Covey, a touring band of musicians impressed by related performing teams from turn-of-the-century America. Her passionate outburst of track at her Reaping instantly sparks one thing in Snow, who acknowledges that her performing expertise is essential to getting her to outlive the video games. So Lucy Gray’s singing needed to be life-savingly good and slot in a selected style.

“I had high expectations, because I think she’s a great actor and a great singer, but the singing blew me away,” Lawrence gushes. “The fact that she could shift right from theatrical kind of singing — something you would do in West Side Story or on stage — into the exact genre of country bluegrass that we were doing in this movie that feels like it’s from the turn of the century to the [19]20s-30s Appalachia. To be able to hit that style and do it so effortlessly, and sing live every day, that was pretty mind-blowing.”

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is out in theaters now.