Unless you forcibly blinded and deafened yourself after the onslaught of Twilight paraphernalia over the past couple of years, you've likely heard the nationwide shrieking of tween girls that signals the approach of The Hunger Games film release date (March 23).
But don't let the Harry Potter-sized hype fool you. Though they are based on young adult novels, The Hunger Games is a bad-ass story. Essentially, it's about kids being forced to murder each other for sport. Eat your heart out, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
We sat down with the film's stars -- Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the lead role of Katniss, as well as Amandla Stenberg (Rue) and Alexander Ludwig (Cato) -- to find out what really went on behind the scenes.
New Times: So, Jennifer, are you as bad-ass as Katniss in real life?
Lawrence: No. I can't even, like, fake sarcasm. I cry all the time. I shake. I have anxiety. I get headaches.
Ludwig: She's not as crazy as she makes herself sound.
So are you secretly a girly girl?
Lawrence: No, I'm definitely not a girly girl either.
Stenberg: Actually, I don't think she realizes how sarcastic she is. She is, but she has an amazing sense of humor.
Lawrence: It's just rudeness. It's constantly being misinterpreted as
sarcasm, but I'm really just being rude and condescending. I just think
I'm better then everyone else. Why shouldn't I talk like this?
So tell us about the training that was involved in preparing for the movie.
Ludwig: We were all really big fans of the book, and Jen and I
especially had a lot of training in agility and free running -- free
running is a sport where you basically use the environment around you to
do cool tricks off of. So we had to learn that for the scenes where
we're running through the forest. There's a lot of that kind of stuff.
There was definitely a lot of physical work involved.
Stenberg: I didn't have to bulk up or anything, but I got to do
some really fun arm-training stuff. I practiced climbing a tree as fast
as I could, and I also got to fly around the room and that was really
fun.
And Jennifer, you had to do archery and all that cool stuff?
Lawrence: I had to do the same training as Alexander, but with basically
added archery -- and track because I run weird. I had to actually learn
how to run. I was basically running for long distances because all I do
in the movie is run... During training, it was 100 arrows a day. During shooting, we tried to keep it up, but it was tricky because we were shooting all
the time.
That's a skill that should come in handy for the rest of your life.
Lawrence: Yeah, I think it's something I'll use for the rest of my life.
Ludwig: She hunted our lunch, so that was really nice.
Stenberg: She caught squirrel for us.
It seems like you all get along well.
Ludwig: Everyone just became like a huge family on set because we sort of got thrown in together into this phenomenon.
Speaking of which, what's it been like so far to be a part of
this huge phenomenon, and going from lesser-known movies to a big
blockbuster?
Lawrence: It's great. Honestly, it's mostly exciting because it's
actually a good story that we all believed. Personally, I said yes to
the movie for all the reasons I've said yes to all the indies. I loved the
script, I wanted to work with the director, I loved the message of it, the
story that it tells. I think we were all very aware of the fan base, but
it wasn't until we saw this press...
Stenberg: I say that when we were shooting it, we kind of felt like we
were shooting on set of an indie just 'cause the feeling and what we
cared about was that the movie was well crafted, not be like, "Oh, this is a
big blockbuster and we have to do this and be all showy for the fans."
It definitely didn't feel like that.
Have you guys had any crazy fan experiences yet?
Lawrence: We all have our weird stories. Amandla has a carpet hunter.
Stenberg: There was one guy, when we were shooting and no one really knew
anything about the cast. We posted a picture of us playing pool, and this
guy... went to every
hotel in the area and looked at the carpet to see if it matched up with
the picture. So that was a little strange. But yeah, it's good to know
fans are so supportive.
OK, guys, spit it out. Team Gale or team Peeta?
Lawrence: I've been at this for a month. You just have to say... neither.
See, I used to say both until I started hearing what they were saying
about me in interviews -- and when Josh [Hutcherson] said that I peed my
pants on Ellen. Now I say neither.
Ludwig: I'm team Rue. I like Rue. Rue's my favorite.
Lawrence: Thanks, Alexander. What? No, it's fine. I just started the revolution, but whatever.
Stenberg: I started the revolution, actually.
Lawrence: Actually, you kinda did.
Ludwig: I heard there are some cool names for teams now.
What are the team names?
Stenberg: At one of the press events, someone was holding up a sign that said, "I'm a Peeta-file."
Ludwig: I guess politically speaking, that's not very funny.
Is the movie going to live up to fans' expectations?
Lawrence: I was a huge fan of these books, and my initial thought was, Great, another book series is going to be ruined by the movies. After
meeting Gary and the entire team behind it, it was clear that everyone was a
fan and everyone truly believed in Suzanne [Collins]'s message and wanted to make
a good film. I don't think any of us would be here if we thought
differently.
Ludwig: One thing we really had in common is that we're all diehard
fans of this book, and really, really respect Suzanne's writing. One
thing I really admired about the way Gary went about making this film is
that they really incorporated Suzanne totally into the mix. She was 100 percent a part of creating this world that she created in a
novel onscreen. We just can't wait to see how it's received. It's very
true to the novel, and as a fan, I'm very excited about it.
-- Vanessa Martin
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