Some brand new stills of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire were spread over the internet. I do not own any of these images:
all you need to know about the Hunger Games movies
On auditioning: “I did one audition and that was enough. Apparently, they were blown away, they didn’t have to see any more,” she said. “I’ve been a fan of the books even before they were made into films. I love the message [author] Suzanne Collins is saying in them,” she said.
On what she learned from the books: “Probably how people can turn on each other and become their worst enemies, when it’s those around you, you really need to survive. I think love is a big thing for my character Annie, she wouldn’t survive without love, she’s at breaking point.”
On why she thinks she got the part: “I think I have a fragility and a vulnerability,” she said.
“I think she’s a a girl that has been through some stuff, she’s had some really hard experiences in her life which I have as well. Annie is also a survivor.”
In MOCKINGJAY PARTS 1 & 2, we follow heroine Katniss Everdeen’s journey as she leads the districts of Panem in a rebellion against the tyrannical and corrupt Capitol. As the war that will determine the fate of Panem escalates, Katniss must decipher for herself who she can trust and what needs to be done, with everything she cares for in the balance.
CREW CALL: “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1″
Accepting resumes for all crew positions. Please email your resume to mockingjayresume@gmail.com
ELLE: Hello, Sam! Let’s get to it. You’ve said in previous interviews that when you went in for your first Catching Fire audition, you didn’t know what the role was for. How could that be?
Sam Claflin: I was sent over a script and there was no title to what I was reading. It was just two scenes with a character called “Finnick” and a mini-character breakdown. I started reading the scene and saw the name Katniss, and I’d just recently seen The Hunger Games, so I thought, “OK, is this a connection?” But I didn’t know it was a trilogy. I just thought it was a one-time film. So I typed Finnick Odair” into Google an all these book and fan pages came up and I was kind of like, “whoa.” So I just went through all of it and did as much research as I could the night before.
ELLE: And how did that first casting interview go?
SC: I thought I had a pretty good idea of who the character was, but I was pretty off. I thought he was just kind of a bad guy. And obviously he’s kind of painted in that light in the beginning, so I honed in on the fact that he was mysterious and untrustworthy as much as I could. But thank God Frances [Lawrence] was there for my recall because he directed me in a very different way than I was expecting the second time.
ELLE: How so?
SC: I think the fantastic thing that Suzanne Collins manages to achieve in these books is that every single character, no matter how big or small, goes through such an amazing journey. And as you read through them, you realize that someone like Finnick—whose image suggest he is perfection personified—is very far from that and he has a very dark past. So Frances allowed me the freedom to play with that in my scenes. Finnick is far from perfect. He has pitfalls and also this fantastic complexity. And Catching Fire is just touching the surface of where he goes.
ELLE: It just seems like a lot of actors would try to avoid that [reading fan reactions to his casting] and instead concentrate on what they can bring to the role. Do you feel it helped you to know what the fans thought?
SC: It helped push me forward and motivate me to work harder. I was reading so many stories about people being unhappy that I got the role—and don’t get me wrong, I don’t sit here Googling myself 24/7—but I think part of me was eager to learn what I needed to do in order to become the Finnick the fans needed me to be. The negative comments made that easier to know what their expectations of me were.
ELLE: Have you seen any early footage of the film?
SC: Just bits and bobs so far.
ELLE: How does it look?
SC: All I can say is that people are going to be blown away. Frances has such an amazing and vivid vision that’s created a whole new depth to a world that’s already basically been created. Add to that the cast: a recent Oscar winner fronting the car; Philip Seymour Hoffman as a new member.
“[Scrifes] started his love affair with the traditional wood bow in the late 90s. He saw a man — he doesn’t remember his name now — making wood bows at an outdoor show in Louisville, and said that was the moment that ignited the spark. “I was like man, that’s cool. I really want to do that,” Scrifes said in a phone interview.
His involvement with “The Hunger Games” movies started in the form of an e-mail sent to him in April of 2011. A woman from a prop company wanted to purchase four finished bows from him — not the blanks he sold.
“I told her I don’t sell finished bows,” he said. ”So I passed her along to some folk who I knew had made bows for sale. But neither one of them had the ability to get this done, and they wanted them quick. Like in less than two weeks quick, which is nearly impossible really. We kept talking and I began to get more interested. She proposed sending me the artist rendition, and see what it would take to get them done. I said yes and she sent them to me. As I was looking them over I noticed a tag on one that said ‘Katniss bow.’”
“I was pretty excited,” said Scrifes. “We reached an agreement and I was to make two functional bows and two which are in a permanently drawn position. They’re not in it for very long, only for a few seconds. But at the beginning of the movie, the bow Miss Lawrence is using to hunt with, that’s the bow I made in my garage.”
Scrifes went on to make four bows for the second movie — two more for Katniss and two for Peeta Mellark.
“I have great respect and admiration for Coldplay, and we are thrilled with how well they have connected to the themes and ideas within the film,” said filmmaker Francis Lawrence. “Their unwavering passion and excitement for the project elevated the collaboration even further, and we can’t wait to share this music with audiences around the world.”
“We are so honored that Coldplay, one of the iconic rock bands of our generation, will perform the first song out on the new soundtrack,” said Tracy McKnight, Lionsgate’s Head of Film Music. “Knowing that Chris Martin is a fan of the books makes this even more meaningful. The Coldplay single underscores the stature of recording artists we’ve assembled for this powerful soundtrack.”
Monte Lipman, Chairman & CEO of Republic Records, stated, “The creative alliance between Coldplay and The Hunger Games franchise will create a level of excitement and anticipation of epic proportions.”
1) “We made some changes to Peeta’s narrative,” says Lawrence. “We manned him up a little. And by the way it didn’t take a lot, just little choices to make here and there. The story doesn’t really change, his relationship with Katniss doesn’t change, he’s just a different kind of character.” For instance, in the book, the Hunger Games kicks off and Peeta is paralyzed when the other all-star tributes dive into the water. “The option is for either me drowning or sitting there like a cat batting my paw into the water,” says Josh Hutcherson with a laugh. “Either way the visual is horrible.” Easy fix: Let Peeta swim.2) Goodbye Bonnie and Twill. In the book, Katniss stumbles upon the District 8 refugees in her father’s hunting cabin. There they reveal to a stunned Katniss the existence of District 13 and news of the spreading revolution our hero unintentionally sparked with her act of rebellion at the end of The Hunger Games. So the movie had to find a new way to introduce the news of District 13. “That’s fun,” says Lawrence, “figuring out new ways around things and new ways of doing things.”3) Darius, we hardly know ye. District 12′s youngest peacekeeper, who pays dearly for intervening during that terrible scene of Gale’s public whipping, didn’t make the jump from page to screen. It’s another instance of storytellers having to drown one of their kittens. “It’s as agonizing for us to lose things from the book as it is for a fan,” says producer Nina Jacobson. “I want every single thing in there. But you know what? If you have to give up something in order to give more time to Katniss and Gale or to Effie as she starts to feel a conscience, you make the sacrifices in order to serve the characters and themes that are more essential.”
“Lionsgate knew I could handle the size of the movie and we were all in agreement of what the movie should be. It’s still really Katniss’ story-there are no diversions from her. I wanted to be true to the book and I didn’t want to reinvent it in any way. It jus needed an adaptation”. ~ Francis Lawrence
Francis Lawrence & Suzanne Collins spent 3 days last spring hammering out a new outline before screen writer Michael Arndt stepped in.
For the same of the movie, they trimmed the novels 1st third in which a traumatized Katniss is locked in an internal debate about whether she’s more to herself or the revolution she’s unwittingly sparked. The scene where she stumbles on refugees Bonnie and Twill? Cut. Or when she jumps from the trip wire fence and sprains her ankle? Gone. But the beating heart of the book remains intact , Francis Lawrence promises.
Claflin spent many hours prepping for his very first scene, where he casually ties a knot in a rope while talking to Katniss. “I wanted to do it just standing up, chatting away. I’d practice and practice for weeks in my room. I must have looked like a crazy person in my hotel room tying a noose constantly”. ~ Sam Claflin
Entertainment Weekly: How have the past 18 months or so been for you?
Trish Summerville: [It's] been a little hectic. I guess I kind of went from Dragon, which I was on from start to finish — including the H&M line — almost 18 months, and from that right into doing the pilot for the Showtime show Ray Donovan, which I just got to see. They had a screening and a premiere, and it was a great time. It looks really good. I’m really excited. And I kind of went from that into Catching Fire. It’s been great, it’s been a lot of work but I like to work a lot, so it’s been really nice. It’s been a really great whirlwind and I feel really, really fortunate because the last few projects that I’ve been on, even though they’ve been a bit challenging at times, I feel really fulfilled, and I’ve gotten to work with such a great group of people. Especially when you look at all of the directors and actors involved.
Was there a person or a designer or a look that really got you interested in design?
Oh, well, I don’t know. That’s so long ago! I think from junior high up I knew I wanted to do something kind of in fashion, but I wasn’t really sure what it would be. I think then, it’s like, I really followed, if I was thinking like clothing lines, it would have been a lot like Blondie. I was really into Blondie, and Billy Idol, and I think it was a lot of being creatively driven by a lot of musicians. At that time I didn’t even know I would work with musicians, like I didn’t even know if [people] really did that. I thought, “Oh, you know, they probably just get a lot of their own clothes.”
Between Blondie and just looking at anything that Jean Paul Gaultier did, that’s when I realized, “Oh my God, there’s such a big world out there of so many creative looks, and opinions, and what is considered fashion.” Because, you know, I’m from New Orleans, so it’s like, we have our own kind of crazy characters that live there, but there was nothing like that. And I was in the punk scene when I was young. I kind of went from mod to a bit punk. I think it was just part of the trends, of Blondie and Gaultier, seeing those people and what they did made me realize. And Vivienne Westwood, because at that time I didn’t know Vivienne Westwood, who was responsible for a lot of the Sex Pistols’ fashion. I think that just kind of prompted me into thinking outside of the box, what was considered the norm and what was considered fashion, what was more like street fashion. I was into it, and musicians.
Who are your inspirations these days?
There are some designers that I really, really love and am inspired by, and aren’t always applicable for things. For the last, I guess it’s almost two years, I’ve been really obsessed with Iris van Herpen. The stuff she does is so groundbreaking and technical, and architectural, that she really just blows my mind. And she’s so young. The techniques she comes up with and all this 3-D fabrication she’s doing, and holograms, and just the materials that she’s using, and the structure that she does, the applications, and the shoes. I just think she’s really phenomenal. She did a pair of shoes she called the Fang Shoe, which I was obsessed with. I know she just did a water dress, but there was quite a bit before that.
Was there one look you created that you would say changed everything for you?
One of the funny ones, I guess, that got talked about was the David LaChapelle video for Christina Aguilera’s ”Dirty.” [The chaps] got a lot of attention. And it was just so funny because everyone kept calling them “ass-less chaps,” but in general, chaps don’t have a bum. Good or for bad, that definitely got a lot of attention. When I look at what I think was kind of pivotal, it’s Lisbeth Salander’s look from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I wanted it to be really authentic and it was very genuine, as opposed to when you do a lot of music stuff it has a lot of flash, it has to make a statement and be bold. Whereas what I really enjoy about film is that you have this character development. It’s about those authenticities of what that character would really do and how they function every day in life. It’s not just about fashion. Like with Lisbeth, we went fully for function, the function of her clothes and what she could find, and how she would really wear it in her life. You know, the drop-crotch pants with the tight-fitted leather jacket, the fingerless gloves, and the taped-up combat boots. I think was a really iconic look.
What was the last look that you designed?
The last thing I designed would have been, I guess in Catching Fire, some of the looks in that are pretty intense, very colorful, so that was great fun because it took me completely into another world that’s not particularly my aesthetic. I like a lot of muted tones and unsaturated, washed out… and that was great because it propelled my mind to think in a really different manner because it is quite over the top. It’s kind of futuristic, but it’s not sci-fi on any level. It’s really bold and really colorful and quite campy at times, then it gets really serious. I tried to bring a little bit of darkness to it, you’re seeing a world that was already created in a book. You want to try to be really respectful to the writers, and you want to be respectful to the fan base, but then you also have to figure out what works visually and what you can bring to it as well. [And] I did the second installation so there’s certain things you want to be respectful about for the characters from the first one, but then also show a period of growth and transition.
I love the Peacekeepers that I did. I wanted to make them look a little more menacing, kind of insect-like. I draw a lot in my inspiration boards from different projects, a lot from nature, and animals, and insects. I just think that there’s so much there, in silhouettes and colors. The colors, they’re amazing, when you look in the insect world, and at in animals and nature. I wanted to make these Peacekeepers… after the first film, I felt like they needed to be bumped up a bit, because of what was going on in the second film with the rebellion that’s starting. I felt that we needed to show a transition, that the Capitol is stepping up its forces and making it much more intimidating and fearsome. So I went for this sort of spiny, praying mantis sort of look for them.
About your inspiration board, can you tell me what kinds of things are on it and how they inspire you?
For each project I do a new inspiration board. For Catching Fire I think we had probably 30, 40, 60 inspiration boards, because I did them for every district and every kind of character we had. On my personal board I have some photographs of native Americans, the Maasai tribe up, which I love, the east Indian painted elephants used for weddings and ceremonies.
Whether it’s for my designs or for my own aesthetic pleasure I’m really drawn to, tribal, native, cultural ways of dress. They’re so interesting and intricate, and generally have beadwork and metalwork. I also like the ideas that there’s this traditional, ceremonial fashion, but also this function. Like, I just recently purchased an image from a water.org benefit and they do this hike up Kilimanjaro to raise consciousness about clean water. There was this image that I just loved, and it was probably 20 Maasai women, in white beading and accessories, and I just loved that they all have on contemporary shoes. People go there and trade things for their jewelry and their cloth and things like that, and so this image is just all these beautiful Maasai women in traditional garb, but then they’re all wearing sneakers and flip flops. I like that. I like that they’ll make bracelets out of Coca-Cola cans. They take what they have and then make it functional and use very interesting forms of adornment.
What else is on your personal board right now?
I have an image of an Iris van Herpen dress.
How does that inspire you?
That one inspires me just because, it looks very insect-like. It’s so modern but it’s really structural, and I love the silhouette of it. It’s very extreme. I have some [pictures of] Haider Ackermann designs. I think he’s really genius and really chic, and his clothes are quite beautiful and really sexy. I have pictures of rocks and stones because I’m interested in doing a jewelry line. I’ve been doing some sketches, and on my table I have a lot of loose stones and rocks. There’s a piece of barbed wire from a bracelet I made. And then, on the funny side of me, there are some inspirational quotes that I put up from time to time. I have a picture of Obama and the Dalai Lama, some family photos.
What are you working on next?
I’m working on a movie, hopefully next year. It’s under wraps still. I’m crossing my fingers it’s shooting in [Los Angeles], which would be amazing. I live in Los Angeles. I hear the talk of Old Hollywood and how everything was shot here, but now so much stuff is shot outside of town.