Jena Malone Talks Johanna in Bullett Magazine, "She Almost Killed Me"
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Photos by James Orlando for BullettJena Malone covers Bullett Magazine's Volume XIII The Lost Issue. She talks about her band with Lem Jay Ignacio, The Shoe, her upcoming projects and about playing Johanna in The Hunger Games films.
From Bullett:
If Malone’s Donnie Darko experience predated today’s obsessive fan worship, the actress tossed herself directly into the vortex when she accepted the role as the plum-haired, axe-wielding Johanna Mason in a little movie called The Hungers Games: Catching Fire, which to this date has grossed $850 million worldwide. In the film, her character, a former winner of the titular games, is furious at having to unexpectedly fight in another life-or-death competition after having been promised a pampered life filled with the spoils of victory. While on a live television broadcast, she tells the interviewer that yes, in fact, she is very angry. “Fuck that! And fuck everyone that had anything to do with it!” she screams, unleashing a rare, bleeped out F-bomb in the family-friendly franchise. Eventually, she forms an unlikely alliance with the film’s protagonist, Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence).
Malone, who is set to reprise the pivotal role in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, the franchise’s third and final installment (it will be divided into two movies), approached the role with the vigor of a method actor. “When you first meet Johanna, she’s got enemy written all over her,” Malone says.
“She’s violent and sexual and caustic and nefarious. But she has a big arch of friend or foe. But she’s fierce. What I really wanted to explore with her was learning anger. Anger has to be so genuine or it feels so fake, like a fake sneeze. So, the first week of shooting, I didn’t talk to anyone. I needed to have this intimidation factor. I had all this [angry] energy surging through me. She almost killed me. A month and a half in, I learned how to turn her off, but at first she was dangerous.”
Read more at BullettMedia.com