2023-11-11 12:00:00
In the pre-episode Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the SongbirdTom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Peter Dinklage and Viola Davis bring Coriolanus Snow’s youth to life.
With the US$2.96 billion earned by the cinematic quadrilogy, the studios and director Francis Lawrence are doing it once more. This time, it’s the ante-episode The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbirdwritten by Suzanne Collins and published in 2020, which serves as the starting point for the film.
Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MURRAY CLOSE/LIONSGATE
The action takes place 64 years before the events of the first feature film of the Hunger Games. Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), 18, becomes the mentor of Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), District 12’s tribute for these 10th Hunger Games. Young Snow only dreams of going to University and, for that, Lucy Gray absolutely must win the Hunger Games.
A real world…
Filmed in Poland and Berlin last year, the feature film immerses fans in the post-war Capitol. “Berlin stood out immediately because of its architectural elements,” said filmmaker Francis Lawrence during a press conference held in the German city earlier this month. “We had also filmed some scenes from the original saga here,” he recalled.
Viola Davis in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MURRAY CLOSE/LIONSGATE
The settings of the Capitol, the Hunger Games arena and even the apartment of the Snows, a family who became poor during the war, are impressive.
“We didn’t use green screens much,” said Uli Hanisch, production designer for Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird. “Francis and I decided, from the start, to use real locations because it grounds the universe in reality. We found the perfect venue for the arena in Poland. The only location that we built from scratch on a film set was the Snow apartment because we wanted to give it a very particular look and a unique shape. Obviously, the buildings and several other visual details like gigantic statues were then added by the special effects department.
Peter Dinklage in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MURRAY CLOSE/LIONSGATE
“I had taken it for granted,” adds Tom Blyth, “that I would shoot mainly in front of green screens and that it would be a very technical shoot. But the sets Uli created were so real that it felt like we were in the Capitol!”
It is a coincidence that Tom Blyth was chosen to play the young Coriolanus Snow, a role played by Donald Sutherland in the previous saga, as detailed by Francis Lawrence.
“I called Rachel as soon as we started the project, she was my first choice for the role of Lucy Gray. We met and, while this kind of meeting usually lasts an hour, we spent four hours discussing the book, the characters, the songs. And tears were even shed.”
Fionnula Flanagan, Tom Blyth and Hunter Schafer in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird.” PHOTO PROVIDED BY MURRAY CLOSE/LIONSGATE
“Tom, that’s a whole different story. We auditioned countless actors and it really came out of the blue. I was on a train when I saw the video of his audition. He has big blue eyes, which is reminiscent of Donald Sutherland, and I might see a resemblance between the two. Tom is an excellent actor who made Julliard [une école d’art dramatique extrêmement prestigieuse, NDLR] and we knew he would perfectly capture the emotional journey of the character.”
Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird arrives in cinemas on November 17.
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