In the prequel “The Hunger Games 5 – The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes” the backstory of the later president Coriolanus Snow is told. In the four original Hunger Games series films, released between 2012 and 2015, the role was played by Donald Sutherland, with Tom Blyth now portraying his 18-year-old self for the prequel.
Donald Sutherland himself did not return for this fifth Hunger Games film – but we still hear the actor in a voice-over in the film’s final scene, after we end on Tom Blyth’s face. The ‘old’ Snow formulates the important sentence from the original ‘Hunger Games’ films: “It’s the things we love most that destroy us.”
But why do we hear Donald Sutherland say a line from the original films without seeing him? And what connection does this sentence create between young and old Snow, Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler) and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence)? We asked director Francis Lawrence when we met him for an interview in Berlin.
The idea came about by chance
Francis Lawrence explained: that from the beginning it was not intended to hear Donald Sutherland’s voice say this line at the end of the filmbut it was used in an advertising compilation for foreign distributors – which in turn gave Lawrence the idea to actually use the phrase in the film:
“We didn’t really want to bring Donald back. We only hear these lines because they are an afterthought. This was actually something that the marketing department edited together during the production process, I think for overseas distributors who wanted to know where we stood with the shoot. We were maybe two-thirds done. They cut this little reel together and it worked really well with that line at the end.
And then it was also used at the end of our first trailer. This has hardened in me. When I was working on the film, I thought it would be very strong, Donald [Sutherland] to actually hear that line from “Mockingjay Part 1” said, especially at the end: reinforcing the idea that this man really should become Donald Sutherland and the Snow we know.
And this line is very special, because we have this tragic love story in our film, which is part of what ultimately changes the film. And that gives this sentence a new meaning. That’s something I really like about this movie. For fans of the books, it’s a chance to return to lines like this and think about what it really means for Snow and how the relationship dynamics change as a result as we learn more about the characters we know. ”
The ‘Panem’ films take on new meaning
If we remember this line from Mockingjay Part 1, Snow says it to Katniss in reference to Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), who is captured and tortured by the Capitol. He is fed false memories of Katniss so that he associates her with pain, suffering and lies. When Peeta is released from the Capitol and meets Katniss in the Rebel base, he attacks her. This situation is difficult for Katniss to bear, because the man she loves has changed significantly and is now turning against her.
Returning to this story after “The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes”, we can see Snow’s association with Lucy Gray, as Francis Lawrence explained: “Before the book existed, it probably meant something different. But now you can tell this story like this. Now you hear that phrase and it takes on a whole new meaning. I think it remembers now [Snow] about that time and how it changed him.”
The full FILMSTARTS interview with director Francis Lawrence about “The Hunger Games – The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes” can be found here: