The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’ Ashley Liao Talks Her Big Scene With Viola Davis

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is currently available to buy on digital, and Lionsgate will be releasing the new film on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD this month. The prequel is based on Suzanne Collins’ book of the same name and takes place 64 years before the first Hunger Games. In honor of the movie’s upcoming physical media release, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Ashley Liao (Clemensia Dovecote). In the film, Clemensia is attacked by Dr. Gaul’s (Viola Davis) mutated snakes. During the interview, we asked Liao what it was like working with Davis, and how they filmed their snake scene. 

“I think that’s the best way to put it,” Liao agreed when we said Davis is “scary in the best way” in the film. “Yeah. I mean, she came on to set just in character, and I remember we did all of her coverage first, and so we were just kind of there for reactions, and thank God for that because I literally just had tears streaming down my face.” 

“My makeup artist, Blair, was like, ‘Why are you crying?’ I’m like, ‘You don’t understand’ Sometimes you just see art that is just so good happening right in front of you and you have no other response than to cry,” she continued. “I did cry. Yeah, for the first three takes of her, it’s just very silent tears just streaming from my face.”

“Actually, that entire scene of filming my hands, it kind of took place over two days, and so one of them was in the actual set that we used for her laboratory, or laboratory, as I believe she put it,” Liao added. “But yeah, it was literally an empty… It was just empty. There was nothing in it except for there was some lights and stuff, but I think her moving the actual terrarium open, that was real. Then all the snakes and everything, they were just added later.”

“And then when we went to go do virtual effects and all of that on it, I did some hand acting because it was literally just that overshot that you see of my hand going in,” Liao explained. “And once again, no snakes. I was sweating by the end of it because if the hand is going to act, I guess the entire body does as well. Yeah, so that’s kind of how that happened. So it’s very funny. I didn’t get to handle any snakes, unfortunately.”

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is being released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on February 13th. You can watch our interview with Liao at the top of the page.