Hunger Games prequel cast attends film premiere, welcomes end of strike
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Cast members Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth at the world premiere of The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes in London on Nov 9.
PHOTOS: AFP, REUTERS
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LONDON – The stars of The Hunger Games prequel welcomed the end of a four-month-long Hollywood actors strike on Thursday as they walked the red carpet at the film’s world premiere in London.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-Aftra) union reached a tentative agreement with major studios on Wednesday to resolve the second of two strikes that had rocked the entertainment industry as writers and performers demanded higher pay in the streaming television era.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes is set 64 years before the films starring American actress Jennifer Lawrence and follows the rise of Coriolanus Snow, the tyrannical president of Panem. The movie had been offered a waiver, allowing cast members to promote it during the strike.
“I already woke up feeling positive and then I saw the news, I was like, ‘Well, this is a great day,’” British actor Tom Blyth, who plays the young Snow in the new film, told Reuters.
“It feels pretty terrific for it to be the premiere after so much time and for it to happen on a day with other really good news is good,” said American actor Josh Andres Rivera, who plays Snow’s friend, Sejanus Plinth. “I know a lot of people who are ready to get back to work. I’m ready to get back to work”.
SAG-Aftra members walked off the job in July after negotiations – over compensation and protections around the use of artificial intelligence – with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) collapsed.
Like the other The Hunger Games films, The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes is a Lionsgate movie, a studio which is not part of the AMPTP.
In the film, Snow mentors and falls for Lucy Gray Baird, the female District 12 tribute during the 10th Hunger Games – a gladiatorial contest that pits the oppressed against one another, while the elite of the wealthy Capitol watch on.
American actress Rachel Zegler, who plays Lucy, described the role as “overwhelming in the best possible sense”.
“I got to do my own stunts. I got to hold live animals, sing, dance, cry, run for my life. It’s amazing,” the 22-year-old said.
Like the other movies, the prequel is based on a novel by American author Suzanne Collins, released in 2020. REUTERS
