August 22, 2022 - Page 2 of 2

The Hunger Games Prequel Follows the Love Story of Coriolanus Snow

Music Observer Staff on August 22, 2022

Photo: EW

Let the 10th annual Hunger Games begin!

Rachel Zegler and Tom Bryce will star as Lucy Gray Beard and Coriolanus Snow in the prequel of the hit film series The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

The footage was first shown in Vanity Fair, where the two characters were shown in a romantic picnic setting – not what one would expect from future Snow, played by Donald Sutherland in the main show The Hunger Games.

“This is a love story,” says filmmaker Francis Lawrence, who directed the three Hunger Games films, beginning with Catching Fire in 2013, in an interview with VF. “It’s this kind of love story set in a different kind of world in a different time. A very intimate love story.”

Inspired by the book of the same name, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes place years before the time when Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen existed.

Set at a time when it’s the 10th edition of the Hunger Games in Panem, then 18-year-old Coriolanus is tasked with guiding Lucy, a District 12 tribute who wins the heart of the land of Panem when she sings boldly at the reaping ceremony.

Hunger Games Beginning

“This is not with judgment, but Lucy Gray is the anti-Katniss,” Lawrence states. “She’s a musician, she’s a performer, she’s a charmer… Snow has never met a girl like this before.”

Award-winning actress Viola Davis was recruited for the role of Volumnia Gaul, the game maker. She now stands among a set of actors to portray the roles in the new story.

Other casts include Peter Dinklage as the accidental maker of the Hunger Games, Casca Highbottom; Josh Andres Rivera as Sejanus Plinth – Snow’s friend; Hunter Schafer as Tigris; Jerome Lance as District 2 tribute Marcus; Ashley Liao as Clemensia Dovecote, a mentor; Knox Gibson as Bobbin, a District 8 tribute; Mackenzie Lansing as Coral, a District 4 tribute; Aamer Husain as a mentor; and Felix Ravinstill as a tribute of District 11.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to drop in theaters on November 17, 2023.

Sadie Dupuis Featured in The New Yorker Cover

Music Observer Staff on August 22, 2022

This week’s cover of The New Yorker features a surprising star: Sadie Dupuis, a poet and songwriter of Sad13 and Speedy Ortiz.

The piece titled “Sun-Dappled” by Nicole Rifkin is on the cover of the August 22 issue and shows Dupuis reading. So, the people want to know, how did Dupuis end up on the cover of a magazine that doesn’t usually feature indie rock artists?

“I was asked to develop this cover originally to be for The New Yorker’s fiction issue,” Rifkin said in an email response to Pitchfork. “I thought that Sadie, who is a friend who also always has about 10 books on deck to read a week, would be the best person to ask to be in the drawing.”

Dupuis and Rifkin have been friends for years now, and, prior to that, they adored each other’s artistry.

“She’s very involved in an extended Exploding in Sound community and has illustrated some of my favorite show posters and album covers, especially for my friends like Mister Goblin, Bethlehem Steel and Pile,” Dupuis said in an email.

“She illustrated an issue of Wax Nine’s journal and did the cover of the Adam Schlesinger tribute compilation we helped co-release, too – very luck us!”

Meanwhile, Rifkin also elaborated on how she admired Dupuis’ work.

“Speedy Ortiz was and still is a really big deal to me,” Rifkin stated. “I remember seeing them open for the Breeders at Webster Hall, and now I get to text her stuff randomly like ‘hey, how’s Lavender’ or ‘hey, can I draw you into a New Yorker cover?'”

Sadie Dupuis Disclosed Details

Dupuis revealed that it was a conversation in text in May where Rifkin requested her to be the model for a possible New Yorker cover.

“The idea made me exceedingly anxious, but then I remembered it’s Nicole, who is a masterful artist, whose past drawings of me have made me feel cooler than maybe any other visual representation,” she stated.

Dupuis further shared details of the process.

“I sent some timer-shot selfies in a pose from her reference drawing, and then a couple days ago, I found out this cover was a go-ahead and was psyched to finally see and discover all the easter eggs (which Nicole is very good at) – including my dog, Lavender, on the back cover of a fictional Wax Nine issue,” she added.

“Plus Dan Ozzi and Thursday by proxy and Imogen Binnie, and a little shout out to Shea Stadium and Death By Audio!”

Rifkin stressed that featuring Dupuis on The New Yorker cover is like honoring a friend whose records have been of great value to her in years.

“I feel like her songwriting has given me so much over the years that I wanted to give something back,” she stated.

Art editor of The New Yorker Françoise Mouly also released a statement to Pitchfork regarding the cover.

“I was so glad when Nicole Rifkin sent her references for the cover (everything at TNY, including covers, gets fact-checked by our fabled team), and I found out that Nicole had posed a musician friend, Sadie Dupuis, for the image of a woman relaxing and reading in the stiflingly hot city,” she stated.

“It’s a wonderful homage. So many artists are musicians themselves (Nicole Rifkin, for one) or inspired by music. It may be that both forms of expression, art and music, are non-verbal and draw from the intuitive and emotional parts of our brain. Drawing is manual labor, and for many, it’s best done with music.”