In just over a month, audiences will go back to Panem when The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes opens in theaters and now, a newly released photo is giving us another look at Lucy Gray Baird, the first victor from District 12 some 64 years before Katniss Everdeen’s games. In the photo shared by Total Film, Lucy (Rachel Zegler) appears distressed while, just behind her, a soldier stands with his gun. You can check the photo out for yourself below.
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While the specific context of the photo isn’t apparently clear — fans will have to wait for the film to open in theaters for that, though it appears that it could be from the Reaping ceremony in which Lucy ends up District 12’s Tribute— it certainly serves as a reminder that Lucy isn’t Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games). Both women are very different, something the film’s director Francis Lawrence has previously spoken about.
“Katniss was an introvert and a survivor,” director Francis Lawrence explained in a recent interview. “She was quite quiet and stoic, you could almost say [she was] asexual. Lucy Gray is the opposite. She wears her sexuality on her sleeve, [and] she really is a performer… She loves crowds. She knows how to play crowds and manipulate people.”
The Hunger Games Prequel Will See Snow “Break Bad”
While The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes tells Lucy’s story, it is also very much the origin story for future tyrannical President of Panem, Coriolanus Snow, though when we meet him in the upcoming prequel, he is a very different person. According to Lawrence, the film will let audiences see the future president “break bad”.
“We start in a very different place with Snow,” Lawrence said. “We see a young man who’s struggling, and who’s part of a family that’s lost their fortune. He’s putting on an act that he still has money, still has status. He also starts in a much more positive place than you would imagine. It’s part of what’s fun about the story, that you see him break bad.”
What Is The Hunger Games Prequel About?
In The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird, and who is a snake.
The ensemble cast for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes also includes Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Laurel Marsden, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Jose Andrés Rivera, Ashley Liao, Mackenzie Lansing, Irene Boehm, Cooper Dillon, Luna Kuse, Kjell Brutscheidt, Dimitri Abold, Athena Strates, Dakota Shapiro, George Somner and Vaughan Reilly, Lilly Maria Cooper, Sofia Sannchez, and Max Raphael. Nina Jacobson will executive produce alongside her producing partner Brad Simpson, as well as Lawrence, Collins, and Tim Palen.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to be released exclusively in theaters on November 17th.
