I Genuinely Can't Watch "The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes" The Same Way After Reading These BTS Facts

Although The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the longest The Hunger Games book, director Francis Lawrence never wanted to split the adaptation into two movies, saying, "We got too much backlash from splitting up Mockingjay."




1. First, author Suzanne Collins called director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson at the end of 2019 to tell them, "Surprise, I'm almost done with another book," which shocked them because after the Mockingjay movies, "there were no plans for any other books."





"So that was a really nice, pleasant surprise," Francis told BuzzFeed. "And then, the beginning of 2020, right before the pandemic, Nina and I read it, fell in love with the new story, and the world and what the books are really all about. We knew we wanted to be a part of it and wanted to start the adaption process."

2. Although it was "brought up," there was never a thought to split The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes into two movies, as they did with Mockingjay. Francis said, "We got too much backlash from splitting up Mockingjay."





From the start, Francis made it clear he preferred if they adapted Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes as one movie, but make it the longest Hunger Games film. He added, "I mean, not a lot of people mentioned [splitting it into two parts]. It was brought up, like, 'You could do it because it's a long book,' and I said, 'No way.' So, I said, 'No, you know what, I would rather do a long movie, and have it be one, full satisfying piece."

3. When it came to casting, Francis and Nina wanted to follow a similar format as the original The Hunger Games movies: young, up-and-coming, and/or unknown actors coupled with "veteran legacy actors."





Francis explained, "The casting process was really exciting. I mean, I will say sort of the background to it, Nina and I wanted to do what was done with the original movies, which is, bring this core of people that are relatively unknown, fresh talent to the front, and then mix them with veteran legacy actors. So that's why we have Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman."

4. Rachel Zegler was the first person on Francis's list to play Lucy Gray Baird. He had previously seen her in West Side Story and thought she would be perfect for this role.



"She was my first choice to play Lucy Gray," he began. "I was in London, scoring a previous film, and she was in London starting prep on a movie. So we had a great meeting, and I knew she'd be perfect."

5. Francis didn't know of Tom Blyth's work before casting him as young Coriolanus Snow, but as soon as he watched his audition tape he was "blown away."




"Tom, kind of honestly came out of the blue for me," Francis explained. "I was not aware of his TV show [Billy the Kid], not aware of him and his work. He read for the part and I was in Germany scouting [locations], and his tape came in and I was just blown away. We had seen some pretty good people, but he just blew everybody out of the water."


6. In particular, Francis loved how Tom echoed Donald Sutherland's performance from the original movies and immediately made you believe he was a young Snow.





He elaborated, saying, "Tom had the great blue eyes that you sort of believe could be Donald Sutherland's later. He's great at his craft. He's Juilliard trained. I knew he could do everything emotionally we needed him to do on this character's journey. But, he was also very sophisticated and intelligent. So to believably be the guy that turns into Donald Sutherland, you have to have that kind of intelligence and sophistication."

7. Rachel and Tom did a chemistry read together before they were both officially offered the roles. For the chemistry read, they performed one Lucy Gray and Coryo scene, but the big thing was Francis had Rachel sing to Tom.





"I had Rachel sing 'Wildwood Flower' [by The Carter Family], this kind of a capella version, which is a song very much in the style of the music from the movie, to Tom. I remember having her sing this really beautiful, a capella version of that song and having him watch her sing, and her singing to him, we knew that the chemistry was there, and it was gonna work," Francis said.

8. Francis recalled, "Viola was my first choice to do this. I just think she's one of the best actors of all time. So I figured if I could convince her, that would be fantastic. So she and I had a great conversation. She was not that educated in the world of The Hunger Games. She'd obviously heard of them, but had not read all the books and seen all the movies. We talked a lot about the themes of the books and the theme of this movie, and why the caliber of actors have decided to join the franchise, which she understood. We talked a lot about how her character connects to the themes of this book, what themes she kind of represents, what she's grooming Snow to become, what she believes in, and all of that. It was great because we joined forces on our vision for the character. By the time we were shooting, you kind of get to sit back and feel lucky that you have Viola Davis there doing her thing and being fantastic."




"When I first heard that Suzanne was almost done with the book, she didn't want to tell me what the story was, but she did say there was a big music element to it, so I was quite intrigued. And then, when you read the book, she's written the lyrics to all these songs throughout. Suzanne suggested I go watch this Ken Burns documentary on country music, which I did, and loved, and fell in love, specifically, with the kind of genre of the music that we were going for.


9. Lucy Gray and the Covey's music was inspired by "'20s, '30s West Virginia" folk and country music. In particular, the Carter Family was a big inspiration for the music in the movie.





10. In fact, Maybelle Carter and June Carter Cash inspired Lucy Gray's performances and music. In particular, Maybelle was known for having a guitar that was almost too big for her, which is a design they took for Lucy Gray.





"So June Carter, who is the daughter of Maybelle Carter from the original Carter Family, was kind of a big inspiration," Francis began. "And also Maybelle inspired the guitar Lucy Gray plays in the movie. Maybelle was small, and she had this giant guitar that looked too big for her. So that's what we sort of designed for Lucy Gray."

11. When it came time to take Suzanne's lyrics for Lucy Gray and the Covey's songs from page to screen, the team enlisted the help of Dave Cobb, a Nashville producer and songwriter.





Francis elaborated, saying, "We started developing that and worked with Dave Cobb, a great Nashville producer, songwriter, who wrote the chord progressions and the melodies."


12. Rachel sang all of Lucy Gray's songs, including "The Hanging Tree," live on set. So, all of the performances you hear in the movie were done live and nothing was pre-recorded.



We had Rachel sing on them and she fell right into the authentic sound we were going for," Francis explained. "And what was great, is she's so good, she sang everything live on set."





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