The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes features a lot of callbacks to the original film.
Picking up 64 years prior, the prequel tells the origin story of Coriolanus Snow (played by Tom Blyth), as he is called in to mentor District 12’s Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Packed across its bumper runtime are everything from Easter eggs to shared characters, as audiences are thrown into a new period of Panem’s history. But with so much crossover, some viewers have been wondering just how connected the two are.
One of the major fan theories has been that Lucy Gray may actually be related to Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence’s beloved hero), based on their shared background in District 12 and their musical talents. However, speaking to GamesRadar+, star Rachel Zegler quickly put this one to bed as she opened up about some of the references that she managed to sneak into her performance.
"I liked that we didn't really have a direct family lineage line to Katniss, it's nothing like that," she tells us. "We didn't want people to watch our movie and point and go, 'Oh, she looks like Katniss'. I didn't want that. 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."
That’s not all either, as Zegler explains: "I also added a spin when I got on stage at the Hob in District 12 because of how many times Jennifer Lawrence had to spin as Katniss to get the dress to flame. I thought that was really important as well [to have] as many nods to her attitude as I could find. They are really very different characters but I think there are elements of them in each other respectively."
The actor, whose knowledge of the franchise is extensive, also points out that Katniss will have likely never known about Lucy Gray. "She's not aware that there was ever a female victor from District 12," she explains. "She's been told that she's the first one and her and Peeta are only the second victors ever on record. So Lucy Gray has been expunged from the historical record of Panem. I can imagine that Coriolanus made sure there was no known record of Lucy Gray Baird."
Zegler’s co-star Tom Blyth also tells GR+ that he worked in some nods to his performance too. "As the film progresses, in those three acts that are distinctive, he gets more and more close to the future president," he explains, sharing how he changed his voice and posture to tease this for eagle-eyed fans.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes arrives in theaters on Friday, November 17. You can listen to our full interview with Blyth and Zegler on the Inside Total Film podcast, out this week.
For more exclusive insight, check out what director Francis Lawrence had to say about the film’s violence, whether he’ll return for a sequel, and what’s happening with his upcoming BioShock movie. We also speak to the film’s producer Nina Jacobson about how the prequel will impact your next rewatch.
