The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Director Breaks Down The Music

Country music from the '20s and '30s served as inspiration for the tunes in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

By Jamie Jirak

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is heading to theaters this month, and fans can expect it to feature some good tunes. Not only can you hear Olivia Rodrigo's original song "Can't Catch Me Now" on the soundtrack, but Lucy Gray Baird, the District 12 tribute played by Rachel Zegler in the movie, is quite musical. The character sings multiple songs in the books, and fans are looking forward to hearing Zegler bring them to life on the bring screen. If you're familiar with The Hunger Games, you know a staple is the song "The Hanging Tree," which Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is often heard singing in the original movies. Last month, Zegler's version of the song was released. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to interview director Francis Lawrence about the upcoming film, and he spoke about the music.

"I'm trying to think of when," Lawrence replied when asked when the music came together during the production process. "It was while we were still working on the script. No, actually, we were prepping the movie. So the lyrics obviously are in the book."

He continued, "And while we were adapting the book, I watched this great Ken Burns documentary on country music and kind of really fell in love specifically with this era, the '20s and '30s era of music coming out of Appalachia, with the Carter family and all of that. And then we got Dave Cobb on board, Nashville-based producer, who wrote the chord progressions and the melodies and then put a little group of amazing musicians together to record. And that took a little bit of time while we were prepping, but I'm just so happy with the sound of the music and the way it was recorded. And then Rachel, so talented, but she just slid right into the tone and the sound of that genre so perfectly."

Nina Jacobson Talks The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Casting:

During ComicBook.com's interview with producer Nina Jacobson, she opened up about the film's casting and the importance of finding the right actors to play younger versions of well-known characters in addition to relatives of well-known characters. 

"Well, of course, any time that you're casting somebody, like you say, who's related or a younger version, obviously you're going to lop off a whole bunch of people who could be great, but who just don't look like they would ever grow up to be that person," Jacobson explained. "So you have the demands of, 'Can I believe that this young man becomes that older man?' And then also on the Lucy Gray [Rachel Zegler] front, even though she's not related to anybody, she has to be able to sing to inhabit that performer's personality, but also to kind of convey both the sort of savviness and street smarts of this character."

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"And to have those questions of like, 'Is she Songbird or is she Snake?' Because she's always singing, but she's also always got a snake, or not always, but a good amount of the time," Jacobson continued. "So, just a reminder that none of these characters are meant to be all one or the other. And so, you have to get actors who can bring that level of complexity and nuance. It's much easier to just play a straight-up good guy, straight-up bad guy, but to have to kind of live in the middle and the pull and the push, and we wanted audiences to also wonder, is it real or not real?"

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to open in theaters on November 17th.

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