When it was announced that Suzanne Collins was writing a prequel to The Hunger Games, many fans were excited at the prospect of seeing fan-favorite characters return to the story and perhaps providing more context for the games. Instead, we got a villain origin story of President Snow, a man who gleefully kills children. But it is what it is.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes takes place 64 years before Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawrence in the first film) volunteers as a tribute in the 74th annual Hunger Games. For the film adaptation, viewers are introduced to Lucy Gray Baird, a singer from District 12, also where Katniss is from. This led to some speculation that the two were related.
Rachel Zegler, who portrays Lucy in the film, says that the two aren’t related, though they have similar traits. “I liked that we didn’t really have a direct family lineage line to Katniss, it’s nothing like that,” Zegler told Total Film. “We didn’t want people to watch our movie and point and go, ‘Oh, she looks like Katniss’. I didn’t want that.”
Even though Lucy is before Katniss’ time, Zegler says she added in some nods to the character. “But there’s a specified curtsy in the book that she does at the Reaping, but I wanted it to be reminiscent of Katniss saying, ‘Thank you for your consideration’ when Seneca and the rest of the Gamemakers really aren’t paying attention to her in the training. And she also does it in Catching Fire as well so that was important to me, and we kind of ran with it.” The two also share another similarity: they both sing the same folk songs from their District.
Now that we have Snow’s story out of the way, when will Finnick get his redemption arc?
(Via Total Film)
