As evidenced in its title, music plays a big part in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”
In the prequel to the original trilogy, “West Side Story” star Rachel Zegler portrays Lucy Gray Baird, the female tribute from District 12 for the 10th annual Hunger Games, who hails from a musical and nomadic people called the Covey. The film features Zegler singing several songs, including franchise favorite “The Hanging Tree.” Much of the music is folk-inspired, and Zegler sang each track live during filming. At the film’s London premiere, Zegler told Variety who inspired her when it came to developing Lucy Gray’s voice.
“We channeled a bunch of people: Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton and Joan Baez, to name a few. That was really the voice that we were trying to find,” Zegler said. “But getting to sing live is my bread and butter, that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life and so it was really nice to get to bring that skill to my peers on set.”
Tom Blyth, Hunter Schafer, Rachel Zegler and Josh Andres Rivera attend “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” world premiere in London, England.
“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” centers on a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who becomes infatuated with Lucy Gray after serving as her mentor in the Hunger Games. The film also stars Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis.
When it came to playing Coriolanus, Blyth was excited by the chance to discover the layers behind the man who would eventually become a tyrannical president of Panem.
“I think when you watch the original films, you can’t help but wonder what he was like before and what he came from. It’s very easy to kind of paint him as the baddie because he definitely is — I mean baddie in the bad way, not the good way — not the Instagram baddie, he’s a real baddie with a capital B,” Blyth said. “But I think for me, the exciting part is getting to answer those questions that I think we all had when we watched the original film, which is ‘How did he get like this?’ And maybe look at his humanity and dig into it a little bit.”
Because SAG-AFTRA reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP on Wednesday and the 118-day actors strike officially ended Thursday, the stars of “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” were able to discuss other projects they have coming up. “Songbirds and Snakes” had previously landed an interim agreement with SAG-AFTRA, since it is backed by non-AMPTP company Lionsgate.
Zegler’s next big role is that of iconic Disney princess Snow White in a live-action remake. On Oct. 27, Disney shared a first-look image of Zegler and the dwarfs, revealing that they are rendered by CGI, which came as a shock to some. When asked about the dwarfs, Zegler replied: “I’m just really excited to get to share that movie with everyone in March 2025. We’ve got a lot of magic up our sleeve.”
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” premieres in theaters on Nov. 17.
