Starvation Video 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 Starvation Video games films. However 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 Starvation Video 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 formidable younger scholar who had not but develop into the cutthroat politician we see in the primary books and flicks. His story is entwined with that of Lucy Grey Baird, the District 12 Tribute he’s assigned to mentor, whose pure aptitude for showmanship and charming songs encourage him to show the brutal Starvation Video games into extra of a flashy spectacle.

Director Francis Lawrence tells Polygon the filmmakers had been in search of recent faces when it got here to the lead roles. A variety of actors auditioned for the function of Snow, particularly, however Lawrence says Billy the Child star Tom Blyth instantly “blew all people out of the water.”

“A part of it’s bodily,” he admits. “He has these nice blue eyes — [you] may see in his face, Okay, I may purchase that perhaps 65 years later, he may flip into Donald Sutherland.”

However it wasn’t nearly how feasibly Blyth may appear to be a youthful Donald Sutherland. Whoever landed the function needed to stroll a line between being charming and conniving, somebody you need to root for, but aren’t shocked once they find yourself turning right into a villain. Blyth introduced his appearing chops to the function, and Lawrence was frequently impressed all through filming.

“Telling a narrative a few younger man’s descent into darkness, you need to have any individual that may earn the viewers’s empathy, however then believably additionally descend into that darkness,” Lawrence says. “[Blyth] is actually, actually good. This type of charisma continued to astound me. His sense of management in his efficiency and nuance additionally astounded me. That basically caught me off guard and shocked me in a incredible approach.”

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

“So she and I met, I believe, for 4 hours or one thing the primary time, and had a terrific chat concerning the e-book and concerning the character and concerning the music,” Lawrence says. “I simply knew she was the one straight away.”

An enormous a part of Lucy Grey’s character entails 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 tune 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 Grey’s singing needed to be life-savingly good and slot in a particular style.

“I had excessive expectations, as a result of I believe she’s a terrific actor and a terrific singer, however the singing blew me away,” Lawrence gushes. “The truth that she may shift proper from theatrical sort of singing — one thing you’d do in West Facet Story or on stage — into the precise style of nation bluegrass that we had been doing on this film that feels prefer it’s from the flip of the century to the [19]20s-30s Appalachia. To have the ability to hit that type and do it so effortlessly, and sing dwell day by day, that was fairly mind-blowing.”

The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is out in theaters now.