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.
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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.
