FEATURETTE: How The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Brings Lucy Gray Baird’s Songs to Life

E! News  recently posted a behind-the-scenes look at The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes with an in-depth look at how Rachel Zegler and the filmmakers brought Lucy Gray Baird and the Covey's songs to life.

There's also a new Billboard interview with director Francis Lawrence, producer Nina Jacobson, and music producer Dave Cobb on the music of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes that shares insights into the music-heavy prequel film.

An exerpt:

Four years after he finished work on the final big-screen adaptation of the zeitgeist-y Hunger Games book trilogy, director Francis Lawrence got a phone call from producer Nina Jacobson, another veteran of the series. And she wasn’t looking to reminisce.

Suzanne Collins – the mind and pen behind the dystopian sci-fi series – had just rung up Jacobson with some news: “Hey, surprise! I’m almost finished with a new book.” Lawrence sums up their reaction: “Wow…. Okay!”

After reading the book in early 2020, not long before it arrived on shelves, Lawrence was officially in. “I love a villain origin story,” he says of Songbirds, which tracks the rise of trilogy antagonist Coriolanus Snow. The same went for Jacobson. “Suzanne trusting me with this series, we’ve had an incredible rapport and bond,” she says. “I was all in.”

“[Collins] told me about the history of Appalachian music of the ‘20s and ‘30s and how often they were based on songs or ballads or poems that had been passed down for generations and collected over time,” Lawrence says of the music that inspired the character of Baird. Collins advised the director to check out Ken Burns’ 16-hour documentary Country Music (“this was during the pandemic, so I had time,” he adds) for context, but both of them realized that finding the right musical collaborator for the film – someone who lived and breathed this music — would be essential to making sure Baird felt like a dusty, jagged diamond in the rough.

Enter Dave Cobb. A Nashville mainstay who’s produced albums for Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson (i.e., country singers who value grit over studio polish), Cobb’s contributions for 2018’s A Star Is Born and 2022’s Elvis proved he could work within the Hollywood system without sacrificing his musical ethos.

When his name came up during pre-production, the team got on the phone to feel out his interest level. The connection was immediate.

As for the nine-time Grammy winner, Cobb tells Billboard that Collins’ vast knowledge of history – music, political and otherwise – made him excited to hop on board and write songs to accompany her lyrics from the book.

“One of the things that was so attractive about working on this film [is that] I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a more intelligent person in my life than Suzanne Collins. She’s an absolute genius, by any measure,” Cobb says. “Suzanne telling me the impetus of the story had me captivated. I’m a history buff, and everything in this film — everything she’s written for Hunger Games — is derived from real history. “I had to make [the songs] feel like turn-of-the-century, timeless classics. That’s a very hard thing to do.” 

“Rachel is such an incredible talent that she ended up singing everything live [on set],” Cobb says of Zegler. “She’s so naturally gifted – it was effortless for her. Rachel has this beautiful, almost ‘30s American pure voice. She can sing anything.” 

Behind Viola Davis' 'Whimsical' Yet 'Devious' Hunger Games Look Inspired by Willy Wonka

 

The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes costume designer Trish Summerville spoke with People Magazine about the concept for Viola Davis’ Dr. Gaul costume, “As soon as you put the costume and the hair on her, the wig and the makeup, she automatically started having this little laugh and the things she would do with her hands," she recalls. "It's a huge satisfaction when you can help an actor transform into being another character." 

Trish says says the inspiration for Davis's look was something of a "Willy Wonka mad scientist, Dr. Frankenstein kind of vibe" — basically a "whimsical feel" with a "dark side to her that's devious."

"She has to have this jovial side where she draws you in, but then she is really terrifying at the same time," says Summerville.

Summerville and her team made "thousands" of costumes for the film, "It was a massive undertaking," she says. "We made buttons for the school uniforms that are the Capitol emblem, so that's 8,000 to 10,000 buttons you're making and casting. If you're going to have 200 or 500 students, you have to make two to three times that many costumes because you don't know people's sizes; if you have 500 background [actors], you need about 2,000 pairs of shoes to make that work for people."

She wanted the costumes for Davis, however, to "be much different than" what other characters wore, using "a lot of color" to make her "always stand out."

About those standout "shiny latex gloves," the costume designer says she figured Dr. Gaul keeps her hands covered because "her hands are destroyed from all the experiments she works on. I always wanted to have her hands covered in every scene," says Summerville. "And having this red-and-white lab coat, we'd washed it so it appears to have this veining, which goes to veins in the body and blood and the washing down of blood on her lab coat."

Says Summerville, "She was just so lovely and gracious. You give her these tools and then she turns it into something bigger than life. She's just this cool, amazing, wonderful, warm and loving person."

Enter The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Fan Screening SWEEPSTAKES in The Queue App

Download the Queue app and add The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes to your queue for a chance to attend a red carpet Special Fan Screening of The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes in Los Angeles on November 13th. Plus, starting Nov. 1, Queue users purchasing a ticket to see the new movie can receive a second ticket for free, available only in the app. 

SWEEPSTAKES & LA EVENT:

Two Hunger Games fans will get a chance to attend the red carpet fan screening of “Songbirds & Snakes” on November 13, 2023. Any U.S.-based user can enter to win:

• Round trip travel + 2 night hotel stay in Los Angeles, CA for two

• Two tickets to the  official Los Angeles Fan Event Screening of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. 

Motion Posters For The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes character posterThere are new motion posters for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes featuring Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Josh Andrés Rivera, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Viola Davis, and Jason Schwartzman in their character poster setting. Check them out below:

The Hanging Tree Performed By Rachel Zegler from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Is Now Available!

Rachel Zegler’s performance of The Hanging Tree from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is out everywhere now! We’ve been waiting to hear this version of the song since The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book debuted in 2020. You can save the song on almost any platform HERE.

And here's a new clip of Lucy Gray writing the song in THE meadow from the movie.