The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping star Mckenna Grace has proven once again that she is the perfect person to play Haymitch's right-hand woman, Maysilee Donner, in the upcoming prequel movie, as the star has revealed that she was insistent on honouring the beloved 2011 fan-made short film right from the start of the process.
Despite Suzanne Collins novel Sunrise on the Reaping detailing the 50th Hunger Games only hitting shelves in 2025, the upcoming movie adaptation won't be the first film to explore Haymitch's Hunger Games experience. Back in 2011, a 12-minute-long fan-made short film titled 'Hunger Games: The Second Quarter Quell' was posted online by MainstayPro, using what we learned about Haymitch's games from the first three books to bring the second Quarter Quell to life.
"Whenever the auditions started coming around, I watched the fan-made film. I would watch it over and over," said Grace in a new featurette posted on The Hunger Games Twitter page. "Every day I would show up to pre-production with the braid in my hair so that I could subconsciously convince them that that's what I had to have. My bangs have to be like this, I have to wear the braid, and then I got the straight hair too."
Grace turned to Stefania Barr, who played Maysilee in the short film, and said, "You are what shaped so many people's, including my own, perception of Maysilee Donner because you are what the fanbase had and imagined for so long." Now that's what we call putting the fans first.
Set 24 years before the first film, Sunrise on the Reaping follows 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada), previously played by Woody Harrelson in the original saga, as he is drafted into the 50th Hunger Games. But to mark the second quarter, the game makers raise the stakes and send in double the players.
Alongside Grace, the cast includes Ralph Fiennes as President Snow, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, Glenn Close as Drusilla Sickle, Lili Taylor as Mags, Maya Hawke as Wiress, Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow, and more. Hunger Games' leads Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are set to make a cameo as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, too.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters on November 20. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the other most exciting upcoming movies of the year, or the major movie release dates still to come.
