“No, not really, I would say that it’s a really faithful adaptation. You know, whenever you’re adapting something that’s a 12- or 14-hour read down to something that has to be around two hours, there’s going to be some cuts. We definitely made some cuts. I don’t want to go into that, but we did it with Suzanne, and I would say that it’s very, very faithful. We tried to get as much as we could in there.”
“It’s interesting because there’s a very small blur—I want to say it’s a paragraph long in the book—but the moment in the arena when the gamemaker starts to spin the cornucopia, and I’m very proud of that. We designed a very cool sequence and created a spinning island, and that’s going to be very, very cool. So that’s kind of fun and very unique. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s cool.
“You know one of the very first things we shot that I like quite a lot is, there is sort of a goodbye before she goes into the arena with Liam that I like a lot. And it was actually—we shot it because we needed summer foliage and summer flowers and things like that. We actually shot it while we were in prep. Very first thing we sort of went out into the meadow, out in the mountains in north Georgia and shot this sequence over three or four hours or so, and I really like it. I think it’s really nice. Jennifer and Liam are really good in it. It’s very nice.”
"I liked what Gary did a lot, but I have a different style than he does," Lawrence explained. "So it was very easy for me to come in the room and sit down with the people involved in the movie and sort of say, 'Here's what I like about what Gary did that I would latch on to and hold onto and embrace, and here's the way I would do it differently.' The trickier thing, honestly for me, was sort of stepping into a world, and there's crew members that were on the first movie, obviously an entire cast, all the people that are returning that I inherited. I was nervous about what they were going to feel... I think everybody in general was really gracious and worked really hard and ended up being really fun to work with. I think there were a couple of people that were really bummed that Gary wasn't doing it, and it had less to do with the choice of me coming on than just Gary not doing it. They signed on with Gary; they're friends with Gary; they like Gary. And I think there was definitely some sadness there."On Sam and Finnick
"[Claflin] is very athletic, which is great. He's in great shape. He's very charismatic," Lawrence said. "But I was also looking in the long term. There's kind of a rouge-like quality to him in this book. And long term, he's actually an emotional character and a very loyal character and a character who's in love; a character who experienced quite a lot of sadness. And he was really able to tap into that, as well as being really charming and sexy and handsome as hell."On Haymitch
"One of the things that we wanted to dive into a little more... is the whole idea of PTSD, and one of the big things for [author] Suzanne[Collins] is just sort of the idea of the consequences of war as kind of one of the backbone theme of the entire series," Lawrence said. "One of the things I really like about this book is you start to see kind of why Haymitch is the way he is, why people are the way they are, so he and I did a fair amount of work in terms of that, in terms of understanding PTSD and how to work with somebody with post-traumatic stress. Also we started messing around a lot with some real humanity in Haymitch because he can be quite cynical and sarcastic at times. But I think there's a more human side to him in this one as well.
"The arena stuff is pretty tricky... just because the sort of center of the arena where the cornucopia exists and the water and the spokes. The circular beach with the jungle around it doesn't exist, so we have to sort of piece it all together," he explained. "And you know even though shooting in Hawaii sounds like a lot of fun, it's pretty tricky when you're in the beach and waves and tides. Our set got washed away one day by the tide, and then... shooting in the jungle where there's bugs and mud and rain. The days are short, so you don't have much time, and you're starting to lug around 100-pound IMAX cameras."
I mean for me, I was already kinda cast! He definitely stuck out somewhat but for all the wrong reasons. Very selfishly, that was the only character I really cared about [laughs]. But the great thing about the books is that Suzanne Collins created these great arcs for each and every character, no matter, I mean from Katniss all the way down to her sister, to her mother. You know, each character goes on a journey. And I think that’s what’s so riveting about the books themselves.
I mean I have to say the pressure is on. I mean, I’m a member of Twitter and especially when it was first announced there was a huge backlash. Some positive and some very negative. You know people were sort of saying they wanted to kill themsleves and that I wasn’t anywhere near good-looking enough. Everyone has their own perceptions of what a good-looking person is and basically all I can do is do my best and you know, you have to kind of not read the bad press or whatever. You have to keep focusing and working hard and the moment you channel that out I just had fun really. And it was hard work, it was definitely, definitely hard work. I was eating chicken and asparagus twice a day, every day. Not including all the other meals I was forced to have each day. And then working out two or three times a day. I didn’t really have a life but when I was on set there was a great dynamic between the cast and crew and when you’re on a set in the middle of Hawaii, you don’t really care about what other people think [laughs]. I enjoyed the moment when I was in the moment. You know, I’m still reading negative feedback but what can I do – I can’t change my face! [laughs]
He was one of the first people I met when I arrived in America. And we had a sit down, we talked through the script, about the novels, about the previous film. I know he wasn’t the director on that but we talked about the flaws and ways of improving or developing the characters’ arc. And obviously the unfortunate thing about a film version is that they are trying to make this accessible to a younger audience, therefore there are certain aspects that you can’t include. One being Finnick Odair wearing just the net or just a knot covering his crotch. That was something that we couldn’t, unfortunately, include. But, you know, I’m scantily clad and hopefully people will still be happy!
It’s one of these things that gets through you, goes straight through you. I mean, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, even with Jennifer Lawrence who’s just won a Golden Globe and what have you! I am lucky enough to be surrounded by some of the best actors that are living.
There really has. This is a question I don’t really know how much I can talk about. I was specifically asked not to mention some of the accidents that happened on set. All to do with me, I have to say… Let’s just say I am a very, very clumsy person. There was fall, after fall, after fall, after fall. We basically, me and Francis the director, we were laughing that there would be a DVD extra, a whole DVD on it’s own for the blooper reel – just for me! Because every time he’d say action, just before we had to a fight, I would flip over or fall. And even when I was standing still I’d manage to fall over. There were plenty of accidents.
"It's a very different rhythm he works at. A whole different visual sense that people will be excited about," Jones told MTV. "There's a whole different way of showing the film that I can't really talk about. There's a very interesting way that they're going to dramatize the Games themselves."
"I'm afraid so," Jones said when asked if his role in the new "Hunger Games" film is the same size as it was in the first one. "I'm there because my kids love the book. There's no huge revelation about my character. My kids are happy that I'm in the film. It means they get to go touch the hem of Jennifer Lawrence's garment. That's why I'm there!"
“In the first movie, I was doing it for real. I didn’t want to show up and be all pretty. I wanted to go in there and be hungry, be oppressed. I quickly realized I was acting like I was in a different film from the rest of the cast [laughs]. I just think there’s a heaviness that I was bringing that I don’t know if it was the story they were trying to tell in this. But there’s such a great character progression with her. She has this rebirth throughout the series, so I play it out in my head a lot.”
"I named her Clara,” she tells ETonline. “I don’t know why, but that just came to me.
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| Mrs. Everdeen and Prim in Catching Fire |
“This is a song that you wrote, not about yourself, because you’ve got to write about something else,” E!’s Ryan Seacrest pointed out to the Best Original Song nominee for “Safe and Sound” from The Hunger Games.
“For a change!” agreed Swift, looking lovely in deep purple Donna Karan Atelier, about the novelty of such an idea.
“It was interesting, because Lionsgate Films came to us and said, ‘We want you to write from Katniss’ point of view, we want you to completely understand her and come from where she’s coming from and we were given such an amazing opportunity to do that,” Swift gushed, “by Suzanne Collins, who wrote the book, and Jennifer Lawrence, who portrayed Katniss.”
“My cowriters, the Civil Wars and T Bone Burnett, were amazing,” she added. “We had this idea that we wanted the song to be about the empathy that goes into this film and the undertones of sympathy and human compassion that go along with such an incredible film with all this action and fighting in it.
“We wanted to highlight the fact that there’s a lot of heart beneath that.”
Claflin brings dimples and green eyes naturally to the role of Finnick. But to otherwise ready himself, he spent months eating nothing but chicken and asparagus. “It’s depressing,” he sighs. “I just want a burger and beer.”
He dyed his hair blonde and endured the indignities of spray tanning. “Look at the tanlines on my fingers!” he says as he shows off his peeling brown knuckles. “I’m very English. I’m white. I mean I’m so pale. With spray tans they start peeling and start getting really dirty looking. It’s kind of lucky for the arena because I’m dirty a lot of the time but it’s not great with my shirt off at the moment.”
Claflin brings dimples and green eyes naturally to the role of Finnick. But to otherwise ready himself, he spent months eating nothing but chicken and asparagus. “It’s depressing,” he sighs. “I just want a burger and beer.” He dyed his hair blonde and endured the indignities of spray tanning. “Look at the tanlines on my fingers!” he says as he shows off his peeling brown knuckles. “I’m very English. I’m white. I mean I’m so pale. With spray tans they start peeling and start getting really dirty looking. It’s kind of lucky for the arena because I’m dirty a lot of the time but it’s not great with my shirt off at the moment.”On the Catching Fire memorabilia he'd like to bring home:
Before the shoot wrapped on December 22, Claflin already knew what he wanted to bring home with him: The arena wet suit for his mother (“I kept my armor from my first role playing a knight and my mum bought a mannequin for it, so part of me wants to get the wet suit so she can have mannequins all over the house…”) and Finnick’s trident for above his own mantle. “Though I don’t know what my fiancée will think about the décor in our house.”
“He’s really smart, and he has a very gentle way about him. He’s really passionate about the book. It didn’t seem like he was just excited to make a huge movie.”
Gary Ross told her Katniss is a hunter. “I didn’t feel like an action star, I didn’t feel like a superhero. I felt like a hunter. That helped keep it grounded in this reality of, she’s good at this not because shes a trained killer but because she a 16-year-old girl who happens to be great with her senses.”
“We were shooting on this beautiful beach, and there were sea turtles everywhere. In between takes Josh and Sam and I were running and jumping in the water. I was like, “I’m getting paid to do this?! This is awesome.”
“Finnick is this tanned, green-eyed sex god. I’m thinking, ‘I’m brunet, I have loads of stubble’, and at the time I was by no means in shape. This guy walked in just after my audition who looked like Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise. I thought, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to get this.’”
“Sometimes you get someone with the swagger but not the soulfulness, or the other way around. Sam had both. He is such a sweet, sweet fellow.”
“I thought there were a lot of opportunities for the costumes, especially in the Capitol, to go crazy, to have fun, but in a very sophisticated way.” Enter The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo costume designer Trish Summerville. Lawrence also wanted to tinker with the cinematography (“It doesn’t always have to be desaturated and grey”) and brought in a new visual-effects supervisor, Janek Sirrs (The Avengers).
“We went and saw him on Broadway, where he was doing Death of a Salesman. It took a lot of patience to get him to focus and read the book, because we didn’t have a script yet. But we really wanted him because we wanted everybody to know that yes, it’s a new director, but our standards are just as high and we’re still aiming for Oscar-caliber actors.”
“The first third of the book is a lot of zigzagging”, says Jacobson. “We go on tour, we’re at the Capitol, we’re back home, then Katniss spends a lot time in her head thinking”. Jacobson hired screenwriter Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) to streamline the story and enliven its emotional core. “Michael turned in a first draft, and suddenly you could see it all”, says Lawrence.”On the the characters that will not be in the movie:
Lawrence says he and Collins were always in agreement about what from the book needed to be distilled, though he was coy about cuts. When asked, for instance, whether we should expect to see Bonnie and Twill — the District 8 runaways Katniss stumbles upon in the woods who first alert her to both the rebellion she inadvertently sparked and the existence of District 13 — he at first demurred. “You’ve got to wait and see,” he urged. But when it was pointed out that there is in fact no Bonnie and Twill listed on the movie’s IMDB page, he gave it up. “Ah, right,” he said with a laugh. On how the movie will now introduce District 13, Lawrence would only say that “it was fun figuring out new ways around things and new ways of doing things.” With Bonnie and Twill gone, so too is the scene of Katniss scaling a tree and then leaping over District 12′s electrified fence. And Darius, District 12′s youngest peacekeeper who intervenes during Gale’s whipping and then sentenced to the life of an Avox, is another who didn’t make the leap from page to screen.... and here's a brand new official behind the scene image from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, still from EW.
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| Liam Hemsworth, Francis Lawrence and Jennifer Lawrence on set of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire |
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| Finnick and Katniss at the EW cover |
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| Finnick and Katniss at the training center |
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| Gale with the peacemakers |
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| Katniss and Peeta, victory tour |
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| Mrs. Everdeen and prim |
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| President Snow |
