Where Do The Main Characters Stand When The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Begins?

Those of us who’ve read Suzanne Collins’ book series know the characters we met at the beginning of The Hunger Games certainly aren’t the characters we get when we start Catching Fire. But how will they change in Francis Lawrence’s film adaptation? A recent magazine feature gives a few insights. 

Sci Fi Now Magazine did a big feature on Catching Fire, which Tumblr user thepeacekeeper posted images from. We learn a bit about what to expect from Katniss, Peeta, and more in the upcoming film from their interviews. On Katniss, star Jennifer Lawrence had this to say:

She’s suffering from post-traumatic stress from the first Games, and she’s trying to get her life back. She is living in the Victors’ Village now, she doesn’t have to hunt any more – which makes her feel useless and bored – and there is part of her life that Gale will never understand. Peeta is the only one that truly knows what she went through. And when she has to go back to the Capitol, it’s not a foreign world to her anymore. Not that she likes it, but she understands it now and how to work it.

Of Katniss’ role, director Lawrence said, “It started as a survival story about a girl who makes a sacrifice for her sister, but it becomes a much more political story. The other districts are starting to look at her as a symbol of the rebellion; people are started to fight back.”

Josh Hutcherson on Peeta:

At the beginning he’s cold with Katniss. it’s weird to be in love with somebody and them not be in love with you. As Peeta goes along the tour, he starts to feel angry about just how messed up it really is and how Katniss is right: this is so effed up to have to go around to the Districts and meet the families of the people that they just killed. When he gets put back into the Hunger Games, he has such a fire insire of him that there are a few times in this movie where I get to be more physical.

And Sam Claflin on Finnick:

You have to be aware of what is coming up, especially with Finnick, where the journey that he goes on in the third book is quite drastic. I had to familiarise myself with that story to have those elements and insecurities within the second film, so when the moments come when he is pushed to the edge, you know why he is being pushed at that particular moment, and why Annie Cresta [Finnick’s girlfriend, who will be played by Stef Dawson in Mockingay] means that much to him.

Claflin also spoke to the pressure of living up to fans’ expectations of his character. “The phsyical challenge proved quite difficult,” he said. “Having read the books and being totally aware of what a lot of fans’ reactions were to my casting, it spurred me on to want to work harder and achieve the goal of basically becoming a sex god. Whether or not I got there is not for me to decide, but all I can say is that I tried my damnedest.”

(via io9)

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