New Lucy Gray Baird Still and Interview With Francis Lawrence From Total Film

Total Film has revealed a new still of Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, along with an excerpt from an interview with Francis Lawrence, available in their November issue, which hits newsstands on Thursday, October 12.

"We start in a very different place with Snow," director Francis Lawrence tells Total Film magazine"We see a young man who’s struggling, and who’s part of a family that’s lost their fortune. He’s putting on an act that he still has money, still has status. He also starts in a much more positive place than you would imagine. It’s part of what’s fun about the story, that you see him break bad."

The new prequel takes place 64 years before The Hunger Games as we meet an 18-year-old Snow (Tom Blyth) as he’s assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) for the 10th annual Hunger Games. 

The future tyrannical president is initially alarmed, given that Lucy is a tribute from impoverished District 12. But when she defiantly sings during the reaping ceremony, he spies an opportunity to turn the odds in their favour – her by surviving the deadly combat, and him by growing the Games from their grubby gladiatorial roots into a show-stopping event full of theatre and spectacle.

The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes opens in cinemas on November 17.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Cast Behind The Scenes Videos From Lionsgate TikTok

The official Lionsgate TikTok account has been sharing some fun behind-the-scenes videos featuring the cast on the set of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Hunter Schafer, Peter Dinklage, and Josh Andres Rivera and more of the cast on set. 

New Interview With The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Costume Designer Trish Summerville From Vogue + Costume Concept Illustrations

In a new interview with Vogue Magazine, The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes costume designer Trish Summerville breaks down the inspiration behind some of the most inspired looks from the film. The article included some gorgeous concept drawings by costume illustrator Gloria Kim.

From Vogue:

The looks in The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, had to live up to the most memorable fashion image from the original series: Katniss Everdeen's wedding dress in Catching Fire, which burned off to reveal a black, birdlike gown beneath. But costume designer Trish Summerville was up to the task because she was also the woman behind the original outfit. 

The prequel—which takes place 64 years before the start of The Hunger Games trilogy, though still in the far-off future—exists in a Panem entirely unrecognizable for fans of the original series. The film, out November 17, follows a young Coriolanus Snow (the villain of the original series) before his dictatorial days, as he mentors the District 12 tribute, the vaudevillian Lucy Gray Baird, in the 10th annual Hunger Games. But that stark difference allowed Summerville to create a different, retro-futuristic world with the characters' clothing. 

Hunter Schafer as Tigris Snow

Tigris Snow's Pink Suit at The Hunger Games Exhibition in Vegas

When it came to the Capitol, she and director Francis Lawrence decided to pull from the postwar 1940s and '50s for inspiration. "They still have the nicest clothing, the nicest jewelry, everyone's hair is styled, and they all have makeup, but it's a much more classic Americana look," she says. Still, Summerville uses the clothing to broadcast the characters' various challenges. Hunter Schafer, who plays Snow's cousin Tigris, became a representative of the Capitol.

"She makes her clothes, but she's keeping them alive because they're running out of money," she says. In a pink, Balenciaga-inspired skirt suit with a structural pointed shoulder, "we sewed all the seams outside, and I frayed all the edges, so it looks like they're coming apart." 

Click to read more ...

THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES Makeup Designer SHERRI BERMAN On The Film’s Period Looks & Character Inspiration In 'On Makeup Magazine'

Emmy Award-winning lead makeup designer SHERRI BERMAN LAURENCE spoke with industry trade magazine On Makeup about the inspiration for the looks in THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES. 

Sherri discussed everything from the film’s period feel to the characters’ visual evolutions and the use of prosthetics.

Where did you draw inspiration for the makeup design for this film? 

Everything starts with meetings with director Francis Lawrence and costume designer Trish Summerville. They had ideas for some of the characters, and an overall style for the film. Like the other Hunger Games, this film is set in the future. but Francis wanted it to have a touch of a period look, with a nod toward the 1940s and 1950s. I then incorporated those elements into character-specific inspiration boards and refined and mapped out each of the characters' looks. 

How do the looks reflect the socioeconomic differences of the areas? 

The Capitol was the wealthiest, so the people were very put together. This was where the background actors had the most classic 1940-50s looks. The Academy, where the mentors are, is also located in The Capitol, so those looks were more put together. The mentors were fresh-faced for the day-to-day, and more stylized and dressed up for the reaping day. This was their most glamorous and futuristic look. Each of them had a specific makeup design to complement their costumes. District 12, where Lucy Gray is from, was the coal mining district. Francis wanted it to look like old black-and- white photos of the Appalachian region in the 1930s/40s. The colors were muted, and the people were covered in coal. grease, soot, and sweat. 

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A Capitol News Special Report from Lucky Flickerman

It’s the return of Capitol News! A new in-world promo video series debuted today featuring a Special Report from Jason Schwartzman as 10th Hunger Games host, Lucky Flickerman. 

All anyone could talk about on social media was the Panem Map that was on screen at the end of the video as part of Lucky's weather report.

This map looks about the same as The Hunger Games exhibition official Panem map. You can check out the history of Panem Maps, both fan made and official in our gallery. 

The second Lucky Flickerman video dropped October 4th:

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for an important update from Lucky Flickerman on the Capitol’s disturbing rabies hoax.

Those of you living under rubble may have missed this new Capitol News ‘Weather With Lucky’ clip.

Lucky weighs in on which one of The Academy's finest scholars will win this year's coveted Plinth Prize

The Mockingjay and The Songbird - Jennifer Lawrence and Rachel Zegler Together at the Dior Show in Paris

The Ballad of when Jennifer Lawrence and Rachel Zegler broke the internet. Hunger Games stars Jennifer Lawrence and Rachel Zegler posed for photos together at Dior’s show during Paris Fashion Week. The Mockingjay and The Songbird finally united!

Rachel posted this video of the two on her instagram stories and twitter:

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes EW Fall Movie Preview Edition Cover + New Cast Interviews + Stills

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes' Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Baird take the gorgeous motion cover of EW's Fall Movie Preview edition. Tom Blyth is seated on President Snow's throne, surrounded by white roses, in the classic pose from the Mockingjay Part 1 and Mockingjay Part 2 promotional marketing. Sadly, the magazine is available in digital format only so we can't add physical copies to our collections. 

We also got our first cast interviews with Tom Blyth (Coriolanus Snow), Rachel Zegler (Lucy Gray), Josh Andrés Rivera (Sejanus Plinth), Peter Dinklage (Dean Casca Highbottom), Hunter Schafer (Tigris Snow), and Jason Schwartzman (Lucky Flickerman) discussing their characters in the film.

A new batch of stills was released with the article, including our first look at THE GRANDMA'AM in a new image of the Snow family alongside Tigris and Coriolanus, Coriolanus and Lucy Gray in the woods, the famous Lucy Gray bow, Lucky Flickerman hosting The 10th Hunger Games, Dr. Gaul on the Academy steps and a depressed looking dean Casca Highbottom in Heavensbee Hall. 

The lengthy article has a lot of juicy details. You can read it here.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - New Stills + Interview With Francis Lawrence in Empire Magazine

Empire Magazine has released 9 new stills from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and an interview with director Francis Lawrence in the November 2023 issue. Lawrence discusses returning to the saga, reshaping the world, and the challenge of ‘humanizing’ Young Snow.

Rachel Zegler and Francis Lawrence on setHunter Schafer as Tigris SnowFionnula Flanagan as The Grandma’amJason Schwartzman as Lucky FlickermanBurn Gorman as Commander Hoff the students and Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom in the AcademyThe mentors and Viola Davis as Dr. Gaul in Heavensbee Hall on reaping dayThe reaping in District 12

A preview of the feature is below:

It’s easy to forget, beyond all the battles and the bloodshed, that the big bad of The Hunger Games series was less the games themselves, than a man: President Snow. Donald Sutherland’s devilish dictator was the Capitol leader upholding the systems of oppression in Panem, bringing violent retribution to the citizens standing up against his brutal regime – an institutional figurehead with a flourish for the dramatic, leaving pure white roses at the scenes of his most heinous crimes. (‘When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal,’ he might argue.) Now, upcoming prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes comes with a fascinating quandary at its core: what if Snow isn’t the bad guy this time, but the story’s young hero?

That tension in Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel is what drew director Francis Lawrence back to the series, years after helming Catching Fire and Mockingjay – Part One and Part Two. “To tell a story about, and to create empathy for, a young man who’s going to become the villain of the other books and movies was a really interesting challenge,” the filmmaker tells Empire in the upcoming The Killer issue. “How do we make this person that’s going to be the antagonist of our story the protagonist of our story? How can we get audiences behind him in his struggle, and see him change and be groomed and turned into the Snow of the later series?” The answers come around the 10th annual Hunger Games, in which the young Coriolanus Snow (played by Tom Blyth) is tasked with mentoring tribute Lucy Gray Baird, played by West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler.

Between his tragic backstory, his shifting relationship with Lucy Gray, his moral dilemmas, and more bruising arena action, get ready for a portrait of the President as a young man. “It was really fun to go back to the formation of him and to humanize him on screen,” Lawrence says. “It was probably the trickiest thing, even from a scripting stage. Because in a book you can hear a lot of characters’ inner thoughts. Our primary objective was to get an audience behind him, but we also had to lay the breadcrumbs so that when the turn happens, it’s believable.” Buckle up – Snow is about to fall.

Read Empire’s full The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes feature in the November 2023 issue, on sale Thursday September 28.