Despite being set in a dystopian world,The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is *much* more relevant than you might realize. The fall movie, which hits theaters November 17, follows a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blythe) 64 years before his first meeting with Katniss Everdeen in the original Hunger Games. In this installment, he finds himself mentor to Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler) from District 12.
For producer Nina Jacobson, who worked on the original trilogy, returning for this film was a no-brainer. "That's a, in many respects, 'You had me at hello' situation," she tells me over the phone. Thanks to author Suzanne Collins' involvement, and director Francis Lawrence taking the helm from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire onward, the adaptation experience has always been "incredibly rich."
Image via Lionsgate
"The books mean so much to me and they also mean so much to other people," Jacobson says. "And to have something that really moves you in the way that these books move and compel me, but to know that you share that both with the readership and hopefully your viewership, [I was thrilled] to be able to come back to that."
However, the excitement also came with some pressure. "If you've made something that people have liked or cared about, the fear of making a wrong step and of overstaying your welcome or missing the mark is enormous," she says. From the very beginning, Jacobson knew the most important detail of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes would be conveying a younger President Snow without manipulating the audience into empathizing with him too much. "How do you explore these ideas without becoming guilty of the things that, in fact, the book is commenting on?"
"In the same way when I first read the first book, I kept thinking to myself, 'At some point, I'm going to lose my connection to Katniss because she's going to have to start killing people. And how am I going to ever be at peace with that?'" Jacobson continues. "I was so in awe of Suzanne's ability to thread the needle, to both create something that was, on the one hand, dark and disturbing, and on the other hand, ethical and inspiring."
Image via Murray Close/Lionsgate
While the books are technically middle or high grade (Scholastic rated 2008's TheHunger Games for grades 7-12), they provide readers with incredible respect and intellect — and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes feels like it evolved with its fanbase.
"The book [explores] these really big, heady ideas from an intimate character-based foundation, and also [brings] together characters who have diametrically opposed life experiences in many regards," she says. "Lucy Gray and Snow both have every reason not to trust each other, not to find common ground. And yet they do find common ground. And I love that...they connect through performance. And I found that to be a very interesting and promising dynamic to explore, and an interesting opportunity for the actors as well."
The fact that both Lucy Gray, who you expect to be the songbird, and Coriolanus, who you expect to be the snake, have so much in common emphasize the movie's thesis: the world isn't black and white — everyone is both a songbird and a snake. Recent years in cinema have seen a more well-rounded approach to characters that highlights the complexity of good and evil. And it's inspiring to see a woman who opens her heart so purely also follow her instincts and have an edge to her at the same time.
"To have a character who [is] capable of doing what it takes to survive and to protect herself and those she cares about, but who still believes that people are fundamentally able to be good, I found that to be a very appealing, dimensional character for Rachel to play," Jacobson says.
Image via Murray Close/Lionsgate
Zegler — who got her big break on Steven Speilberg's West Side Story and is starring in Disney's upcoming live-action Snow White — is a performer just like her character, and ended up singing almost all of Lucy Gray's songs live on set. "I have to say I was incredibly surprised to see that Rachel chose almost every time to sing live," Jacobson says. "The fact that Rachel, with her voice and her performance, [chose] on virtually almost every take to sing live really blew me away and I think is a really fun thing for audiences to enjoy about the movie."
Another behind-the-scenes tidbit I found hilarious was the fact that Jason Schwartzmann (who plays Lucky Flickerman, ancestor to Stanley Tucci's Caeser Flickerman) got to work with a magic coach. Lucky has plenty of ad-libs and one liners — many of which will make you laugh out loud — that Schwartzmann helped create. "It was just a very collaborative and energetic production," Jacobson says. "And [on set], we never had anybody show up who was like, 'Okay, let's steer clear of that person, or no joking now'...It was one of the things that doesn't happen all the time. I wish it did, but it doesn't. But this one was really exceptionally fun behind the scenes."
"This is also really a tribute to Francis and just he really does run an incredibly warm and inclusive and fun set, it's very social. We spent a lot of time together outside of work," Jacobson continues. "Every time that I thought, 'Oh, when is the fun part going to end?' it remained a very...warm and familial group of people who were all really into their characters."
Image via Lionsgate
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the kind of movie that will get you talking, and it will stay with you for days because of how rich and complex and intriguing every single detail is. "I hope that people will want to debate a lot of things," Jacobson says. "And I hope that people come away with different ideas and not just one point of view. One of the things that I love about Suzanne's writing is that it's so rich that there's room for a lot of different ideas and different ways of reading and perceiving the story and the characters. And I hope that people have a chance to really have something to talk about when they leave the theater."
Are you excited for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and to hear Rachel Zegler sing Lucy Gray Baird's songs live? Check out our Hunger Games page — and our exclusive images from the new movie — for the latest info on the series!
This interview has been edited for clarity.
