00:00What excites me the most is seeing how they've interpreted the history of Panem,
00:04because obviously it's not a real world. It's a world that has been made up by Suzanne Collins'
00:08brain. Get ready to return to Panem in The Hunger Games' The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
00:14The prequel story is set during the 10th annual Hunger Games, 64 years before the events of the
00:19original book trilogy and subsequent film series. The cast of the new film spoke to The Hollywood
00:24Reporter all about their roles and shed some light on just how this movie differs from The
00:28Hunger Games films released from 2012 to 2015 that fans know and love. Star Rachel Zegler has
00:34admitted that she was a big fan of the original movies. In this new film, she plays Lucy Gray
00:39Bayard, the girl tribute from District 12 chosen to compete in the 10th annual games.
00:44How do you think your knowledge of this world informed your portrayal of Lucy Gray and helped
00:48you play her? That's a great question. It's so awesome to have a deep knowledge of the universe
00:54that you're in. And also, it's fun to then dial it back. I think you've said rewind the tape a bit
01:01and then get to really get into the meat and potatoes of how it came to be. And Suzanne gave
01:08us such great source material with our book. And so I felt so at home getting to step into the world
01:15of Panem and getting to do all of that. And also just the fan in me was just giddy the entire time.
01:22Zegler's Lucy Gray is mentored in the story by none other than young Coriolanus Snow,
01:27who fans know goes on to become the tyrannical president of Panem.
01:30This is a villain origin story. And when we see Coriolanus cross that line into evil,
01:36he never really comes back from it. How did you go about portraying that gradual descent
01:41into darkness? I actually, I kind of went through a process of starting afresh with him,
01:46which is what the book does as well. You know, it forgets all the stuff that happens later on in his
01:50story and really rewinds history on the universe of Panem and says, you know, where did he come
01:56from? Why is he the way he is? And I got to kind of like really dissect him psychologically,
02:02which I love doing with characters. And to do that, I kind of, the film is broken up into three
02:07acts, really, three major acts. And I kind of broke up Coriolanus's progression into three acts as well.
02:14And kind of, he's like Corio, the boy at 18. And then he's Coriolanus, the man in the middle act
02:19or becoming a man. And then Coriolanus Snow, future president to be in the third act. And by the
02:25third one, by the end, you're like, kind of as an audience member, you're like, hope, I hope people
02:29are like, just like, like scratching at their eyeballs being like, no, don't go down that path,
02:34even though we all know he's going to, because we've seen what happens. And hopefully, like, even though we
02:39know where it goes, you're still kind of like desperate for him not to do it and not to,
02:43not to go off the deep end in a dark way. Just as fans of the franchise know what becomes of
02:47Coriolanus Snow, they also know that Pan Am looks much different in this new prequel than it does
02:52in the first film starring Jennifer Lawrence, which is set during the 74th iteration of the games.
02:56What difference between the two versions of Pan Am that we now get to see struck you the most?
03:02The show about it, you know, like how it's such, it's just making a big show out of the Hunger Games
03:08themselves and how we go from Lucky Flickerman, the meteorologist on Capitol News, you know,
03:14covering, covering them falling into the zoo and then becoming the host of the Hunger Games to then
03:1864 years into the future, Cesar Flickerman has his own talk show and is basically doing late night
03:24to interview them all and they get all done in hair and makeup to, it's just crazy to me because I know
03:30that, you know, it was, it wasn't like that at first.
03:33I like that, uh, the media spectacle of it all had not been polished in the, in, in this story
03:42and about a Songbirds and Snakes because that, I think, uh, finding reasons for people to watch
03:47the games is still a project underway and everybody's bouncing all these ideas like we need to make this
03:53more of a spectacle. And Snow is ultimately the one who, you know, puts his hat in the ring and,
03:59and kind of invents what we see in the original trilogy.
04:03On a more aesthetic level, um, and like as a sci-fi geek, I think it was really interesting the way,
04:10um, I mean, because the Capitol that we know in the original, uh, trilogy is kind of so like,
04:17um, polished and really like high future. Uh, and this was, it was such a fun kind of take on like
04:27what it, what the future would be, but with like a twinge of like past flavor. Um, and, uh, I don't
04:37know. I think like the DP and the, the people who were in charge of like building that visual world
04:42that like killed it. It was so, it was so much fun. Our designers, um, and Francis came up with an
04:48amazing world that is like almost 1950s-esque, uh, aesthetically, but also with all like the
04:54technology that we know Panem has. Um, and you know, we'd be on set and you're like, you almost
05:00feel like you're in a period film, like in a period movie while also being in a futuristic dystopian
05:05movie at the same time. Um, and just in terms of your imagination as an actor, it's so rich. Um,
05:10you know, you've got like 1950s looking cars driving past you and people in like long trench
05:14coats and gowns, but it's all electric. Um, and there were drones flying around and stuff and
05:20everything was real. We were on location the whole time, no green screens in sight. So it was all built
05:25by the design team, um, and all very tangible. The Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
05:30flies into theaters in the U.S. on November 17th. For more on the film, go to THR.com. For The
05:36Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Tiffany Taylor.
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