The Big Picture

Welcome to a new episode of Collider Ladies Night with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes star, Rachel Zegler! During the conversation, Zegler recaps her journey from West Side Story to The Hunger Games, and explains why Lucy Gray felt like the perfect next lead role to take. Zegler also teases what to expect from her upcoming Snow White movie and A24’s sci-fi comedy, Y2K.

It isn’t snagging a breakout role in a major Hollywood film, but once you do, the pressure doesn’t stop there. Picking the right follow-up projects, ones that allow an actor to continue honing their craft while also further solidifying the artist one wants to present to the industry, is of the utmost importance. That’s the phase we find Rachel Zegler in. After delivering a staggeringly beautiful debut feature performance in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, it’s on to a beloved franchise, a remake of a Disney classic, and an A24 comedy.

The first out of the gate for that trio is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The role of Lucy Gray Baird is a massive challenge to take on for a number of reasons. First off, Zegler must follow in the footsteps of Jennifer Lawrence who delivered impeccable work as Katniss Everdeen in the original Hunger Games movies. Not only must Zegler take up the mantle of Hunger Games lead, but she’s doing so with a character with an especially bubbly personality who very much walks to the beat of her own drum. Zegler was tasked with capturing Lucy Gray’s infectious song and spirit, but without ever undermining the severity of the situation she finds herself in, and Zegler absolutely nails it.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes place 64 years before Katniss volunteers for the 74th Hunger Games. The 10th Hunger Games is a wholly different spectacle. The Capitol has yet to develop its hi-tech arena, hovercrafts, and disturbing array of cruel mutts. Instead, the tributes are starving, the bloodbath unfolds in an old stone arena, and they struggle to get Capitol citizens to watch. However, this year could be different because this time around, the tributes have mentors. When a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is assigned to mentor District 12’s Lucy Gray, he’s determined to get her to capture the hearts of Capitol citizens just like she did his, via song and simply being a ray of light in horrible situation.

Image via Lionsgate
 

With The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes now playing in theaters nationwide, and already racking up $44 million at the domestic box office, Zegler took the time to join me for a Collider Ladies Night conversation to discuss her goals as she continues to carve her path in Hollywood.

As one might expect, Zegler did find early inspiration on the stage, particularly Ashley Brown’s work as Belle in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway. “I wanted to be in musical theater.” Zegler added, “I just fell in love with the idea of performing live and the big beautiful costumes, and everything in between.” From there, Zegler pinpointed some on-screen inspiration, and it’s someone she finds herself following in the footsteps of right now. She began:

“I would say movie-wise, I think it was probably Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis. I think I was like 13 years old when I saw that, which is way too young to see Inside Llewyn Davis, or at least too young to understand it fully, but it was seeing a Latino in a space where being a Latino was not the basis of his character. He just kind of got to exist, and he got to give a brilliant performance, and he got to check off all the boxes of the things that he’s amazing at because he’s an amazing musician, an amazing singer, an amazing actor, funny, and self-deprecating, and amazing. I just remember looking at it and watching it and being like, ‘I want to do that.’”

Ten years after the release of Inside Llewyn Davis, Zegler really is getting to do that. She considers the role of Lucy Gray in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes her Llewyn Davis.

“I kind of viewed Lucy Gray, in a way, it’s not the same probably to the general public, but to me, it was my Llewyn Davis where I was like, I get to check the boxes of all the things I know I can do and also stretch myself into this version of an actor that I never thought I could be with all the action stuff.”

In addition to finding motivation and enthusiasm via Isaac’s work in Llewyn Davis, Jennifer Lawrence’s performance in the original Hunger Games films further confirmed to Zegler that the role of Lucy Gray was an ideal next step for her as an actor. She continued:

“With Lucy Gray, it was one of those things where I watched her conception in the public. I was there when the book was released. I was waiting for that book to come out, and was so excited. I had no idea what it was gonna be about. And when I read it, it just felt like, ‘This is the thing.’ I grew up watching Jennifer Lawrence do everything that she is amazing at – she was funny, she was endearing, she was tough, she was an action star – and watching her do it like it was nothing in those original films. So I was reading this book being like, ‘This would be the opportunity of a lifetime.’ It wasn’t necessarily a step up or outdoing myself in West Side Story, but showing the public that I could do more. It’s stretching a different instrument vocally, testing my limits in the action world, but also emotionally. She’s a little mercurial, a little bit crazy, and also, you can’t tell what her motives are. So she’s got this wile in her eye that I was so excited about.”

A role brimming with creative possibilities for sure, but that “wile in her eye” makes Lucy Gray an especially challenging character to take from page to screen. She’s got a natural theatricality to her, likely due to the fact that she’s a member of The Covey, a nomadic group of widely talented musicians and performers. How does one capture that while ensuring it feels honest and grounded — especially when Lucy Gray finds herself in the middle of a life or death situation in The Hunger Games? Zegler pulls it off beautifully, and it’ll be easy to see why based on one particular core goal she had for the character:

“I just wanted people to miss her when she was off-screen. That was the thing that I wanted to capture the most because I would miss her when she wasn’t on the page. And so, I just remember thinking, ‘This is how people felt, probably, watching her trajectory in the Hunger Games,’ where they were probably in the Capitol, all cozy watching television, and every time she wasn’t in the news, they’d be like, ‘It’s a boring news day.’”

As hoped, Zegler is having that effect on moviegoers, and she took a moment to express her appreciation for those who’ve shared that reaction:

“That became something that was also really lovely to hear from people when they were giving their first social media reactions to the movie, when they were like, ‘You miss her when she’s off-screen.’ It’s such an accomplishment to me and the biggest compliment you could pay me because that was my approach to her was, ‘You’re gonna miss her when she’s gone,” both in a literal sense [laughs], and also in a figurative sense because she haunts Coriolanus for the rest of time. Like, what kind of person do you have to be to screw him up for that long?”

Image via Lionsgate

Zegler nails it all in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. She’ll send you on your way humming Lucy Gray’s music, she’ll make you miss the character when she’s not on screen, and she’ll also make a lasting impact on the character of Coriolanus Snow. Not only is their journey downright riveting in this installment of the franchise, but if you jump to the other four films after watching Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, you’ll likely see a new (or bolstered) layer to Donald Sutherland’s President Snow, one that you now know was left there by Lucy Gray.

Eager to hear even more from Zegler about her journey to The Hunger Games film franchise, what we can expect from her version of Snow White, and some memories from the set of Kyle Mooney’s directorial debut, A24’s Y2K? Be sure to watch her full Collider Ladies Night interview in the video at the top of this article, or you can listen to the conversation in podcast form below:

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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows a young Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) — the last hope for the once-proud Snow family — who is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from the impoverished District 12 for the 10th Hunger Games. Snow sets out on a race against time to survive and reveal if he will become a songbird or a snake. Release Date November 17, 2023 Director Francis Lawrence Rating PG-13 Runtime 165 minutes