The three Hunger Games movies Francis Lawrence has directed represent high points of his career. He spent the 1990s and 2000s in the world of music videos, getting to direct some of the industry’s biggest stars (among them Alanis Morissette, the Black Eyed Peas, Lauryn Hill, Justin Timberlake, and Lady Gaga), and then he jumped into film with a couple of adaptations, including Constantine (from a comic book) and I Am Legend with Will Smith (from a novel by Richard Matheson). Lawrence is, in short, a master of adaptations. And after Gary Ross, who directed the first Hunger Games movie, walked away from the franchise, Lawrence became the director Lionsgate called upon to finish transforming Suzanne Collins’ books into blockbusters.
Lawrence went from understudy to the master of the saga, directing the remaining three films in the original series. He is now in charge of a planned series of three prequels. For now, we can only say “planned,” as the subsequent movies will depend on the reception of this weekend’s release, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The film recounts the origin of Coriolanus Snow, the president of Panem, a dictator who in the original four films was played by Donald Sutherland. In the new movie, which takes place 64 years earlier, Snow is a boy (played by Tom Blyth). While in the earlier movies with Jennifer Lawrence, Snow is the villain, in the prequel he has yet to come to power. He is a sincere, honest, and idealistic young man. At the end of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, also based on a Collins novel, he has still not taken a turn to the dark side, leaving room for more movies tracing his evolution.
In the lead-up to the release of the new film, we were able to speak with Lawrence about his perspectives on the franchise and his approach to it. This new film invents a past for Panem and introduces new characters: Viola Davis plays a villain, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, in a part similar to Sutherland’s Snow, and Peter Dinklage portrays Dean Casca Highbottom, a more ambiguous and interesting figure. Finally, as the title hints, this is not just the story of one character but two—young Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a girl with an indomitable spirit from District 12 (later home to Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence in the original series) who participates in the Hunger Games.
WIRED: One of the most interesting aspects of the Hunger Games, the novels and then the film series, was to have a female protagonist in a position usually filled by male protagonists. That is, leading an action and science fiction story that is about what happens to girls. In the new movie the protagonist is a man. Does that change the point of view on the world of Hunger Games?
Francis Lawrence: This time the story is much more about human nature. Deep down are we savages or are we basically good? This is the theme of young Coriolanus Snow’s story, and it’s perfect for telling the story of the world of Panem. Then add to that the fact that I love origin stories of villains—people who seem good, who you can empathize with, but then they become villains.
What do you think are the best villain origin stories? The ones you would like to outdo with this film.
There are so many of them and not only in cinema. You can go all the way back to Shakespeare and Macbeth for example. In terms of television series, there’s Breaking Bad. In the movies, there are the origin stories of Darth Vader and the Joker. They are all stories that audiences love.
What do you think it takes to successfully center a story around a villain?
The trick—and what we focused on—is to delve into the personality of the character. We already know that he will be the main antagonist of the saga, but now we have to empathize with him, we have to root for him for as long as we can. At the same time, we also have to sow the seeds of all that he will become so that the turn to evil is believable and rings true. The goal is that eventually you can look back and see that all these seeds were already there when you were cheering for him.
One of the many successful elements of the Hunger Games films was that they told a story about a clash of generations at a time in history when many kids feel that older generations are excluding them. Is there something in this prequel that’s equally searing and powerful?
I think it’s precisely this idea of a debate around human nature and a dualism between good and evil. The novel and the first movie came out when we were beginning to notice that the United States and also the rest of the world were becoming polarized. Some people believe something, others the opposite, and there was no room in the middle. I think it’s something that can appeal to a lot of the younger generation.
Did you have to alter the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes novel very much? Was there anything that didn’t work for the film?
No, I wouldn’t say so. The hard part was being able to be emotionally honest with the story of this boy who chooses to become a villain. Obviously the book is long and there were some passages that we compressed (in some cases we took ideas that were scattered in several scenes and compressed them into one). But there was nothing in the novel that couldn’t be included in the movie.
Panem is supposed to be the United States but set in the future, yet it appears there’s nothing of American culture left. But when you chose a musical style for the songs of Lucy Gray Baird [a District 12 tribute who is also a singer and songwriter played by Rachel Zegler] you opted for a very traditional American genre, folk. Were you looking for a direct connection to the United States?
The connections have always been there, although often they are very subtle. In the world of the novels we know that there have been environmental catastrophes and changes in the nations’ borders. In short, it’s a lot different, but it’s still the United States, just divided into districts. Lucy Gray comes from the same district as Katniss, the 12th, which is more or less where West Virginia is today. That’s why we chose this music, the music of the 1920s or 1930s from that part of the country. Even the lyrics come from ballads that were originally from Ireland, England, and Scotland, only modified with the passing of generations.
That’s not the only backdated detail, however. The technology—despite the film being set in the future—seems to be from the 1950s. Even the way the television frames people seems to reflect the style of that period.
We made that choice because everything is set 64 years before the original films and so it had to look more rudimentary, even the games are simpler and so is the technology. You travel more by rail and less via hovercraft, the drones are more rudimentary. We took elements from the 1940s and 1950s and gave them a futuristic slant, obviously that includes the technology but also the costumes and makeup. With everything, we were imagining a world of references that could then evolve into the Panem we know from the original movies.
Among many things, Hunger Games serves as a parable that teaches girls that there are people out there who will want to do something with their image. The government, as well as the rebels, care about Katniss because of the power of her image and the hold she has over people. Do you think this saga has a message for boys as well?
I don’t think it is a message limited to boys. The theme is always the same, are we animals or are we basically good? And that speaks to everyone.
This article was originally published by WIRED Italia.
