Jena on Johanna from EW

When we first meet Johanna Mason, a ferocious, ax-wielding victor from District 7, it's on an elevator with Haymitch, Katniss and Peeta. She stares down the trio and proceeds to strip naked. "It's one of the best introductions to a character ever," says 28-year-old actress Jena Malone (Donnie Darko). "I had to learn how to do a striptease in four seconds."

For Malone, Johanna defies expectations for women in genre films. "She's not just another badass sexy female," she says. "Her sexuality is a weapon. Her humor is a weapon. They're part of her process of coping with the fact that she killed all her friends in her own Hunger Games." Malone can't shake one particular scene in which her entire body is drenched in blood. "I felt like this gladiator," she says. "The cameras would cut and I would still have this crazy energy surging through me. Johanna took over."


From EW's October 11 "Catching Fire" special issue.

Victors Revealed on The Hunger Games Explorer: Johanna

Remember who the enemy is....

Early reveal! We thought the reveal was supposed to be at NOON today, but it looks like Johanna has arrived early to The Hunger Games Explorer banner.

Jena Malone on Her Transformation to Johanna Mason in 'Catching Fire'

Photo by Jena Malone

Jena Malone talked with Vogue about getting into her character, Johanna Mason both physically and mentally.

the hardest thing about being Johanna was finding a way to carry her energy in my body for sixteen hours a day. She has this anger that is always bubbling at the surface.

 

To whip her into shape for her role as Johanna Mason, the cunning District 7 tribute in the second installment of The Hunger Games trilogy (due out in November), actress Jena Malone required a fleet of fitness pros: A stunt team to provide her with the martial arts training she’d need for the film’s challenging action sequences—shot across land and water in Hawaii earlier this year—and a personal trainer to sculpt her body into a formidable fighting machine. “She has this intensity,” says Malone of her character’s steely physical and mental fortitude. “She can walk into a room and stare you to death.”
 
With that in mind, on-set makeup artist Nikoletta Skarlatos gave Johanna extreme lashes and heavily shadowed lids in shades of “warrior” green and gold for her early scenes in Panem’s Capitol; the choppy brunette bob she adopts later in the wild, on the other hand, was Malone’s own handiwork. “I cut it [myself],” she admits with a laugh.
 
Now that shooting has finally wrapped, the 28-year-old actress is currently back home in Los Angeles, where she has recently finished work on another project: Paul Thomas Anderson’s forthcoming Inherent Vice, a film that has ushered in yet another beauty transformation this summer—her newly honey-blonde hair. 

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Jena Malone in LadyGunn Magazine

All photos by Shelby Duncan

Jena Malone has a beautiful feature in the latest LADYGUNN Magazine. She talks about her acting career and gives us some insight into her method, plus she talks about her audition for Catching Fire, "I blew them out of the water." The gorgeous photographs are by Shelby Duncan

LG: Congrats on THE HUNGER GAMES, by the way.

Jena: Thank you! Can’t comment on it yet, but I’m allowed to say how excited I am to be working on it. It’s a fucking dream! My little sister recommended I read it like two years ago and now she is dying.

LG: Nowadays some girls are instant celebrities, whether they deserve it or not, because they played the “Hollywood” game.

Jena: Seriously, you get one film, you hire a publicist and a stylist, all of that, and instantly you look like a celebrity. Where is your voice? Where is your point of view? That’s what made Julia Roberts so interesting when she was younger. And people like Madonna. That’s what makes Meryl Streep interesting every single time she walks out the door. She has a point of view. These other women buy their point of view from stylists or fashion people or agents. But they make far more money than I do. They are getting job offers that I could only dream of. There are some aspects where I wish someone would have just told me when I was a hot-headed 17-year-old, I could have just played the game a little straighter and I would have been able to have more doors open now.

LG: Well, THE HUNGER GAMES, c’mon, that’s a pretty big coup.

Jena: That’s the funny thing, the only reason I got this is because I blew them out of the water in the audition. It wasn’t because I played the game right and wore the sexy skirt, it was because I went in there and really auditioned and they actually had a casting director that wanted to cast real actors. That is not always the case.

LG: Especially in such a large franchise.

Jena: Right, I often see a lot of the younger actors who are like, “What should I do?” Honestly, it’s hard either way. It’s hard to be yourself and it’s hard not to be yourself. Both have a means of making you feel insecure and not sturdy in your job. It’s such a delicate thing. You’ve got to play the game a little bit. Even that’s a stylistic choice, even that’s a persona. It’s all a guise, a dream within a dream, so what’s really the truth of it? It’s far deeper inside, not on the outside. I think that’s what I am learning now. How to appreciate the material aspects that basically form that language of Hollywood without depreciating my internal aspects. 

 

Read the rest of this great article at Ladygunn

Thanks to TheHob.org for the tip!

VIDEO: Jena Malone on Her Nude Scene in 'CatchingFire'

HitFix spoke with Jena Malone at Comic Con about her role as Johanna Mason in Catching Fire. On the famous Johanna elevator nude scene, Malone wouldn't elaborate too much, but said that Francis Lawrence and his writers for this sequel have integrated in Suzanne Collins' descriptions of that passage.

"We're quite faithful to the adaptation," Malone said, acknowledging the scene.

As for the cast, Malone was excited by each addition as they were announced. "Every day, I'm thinking This is so incredible," she daid. "[Every character] has their own flavors and weapons and things, it's really cool."

Johanna's Capitol Portrait Dress Designer Discovered

We just discovered that the gorgeous dress from Johanna Mason's Official Capitol Portrait was designed by Dutch designer Jan Taminiau. The dress is from Taminiau's appropriately named F/W 2011 Collection, Nature Extends.  It shouldn't surprise you to find out Lady Gaga has worn Taminiau's designs many times. Gaga seems to be a big inspiration for Catching Fire costume designer Trish Summerville. 

Thanks to MyHungerGames.com for the info!