Elizabeth Banks on Hunger Games: The Musical and Pitch Perfect 2

Elizabeth Banks thinks The Hunger Games would make a fun musical – and believes a singing version is probably already in the works.

The actress, 39, is one of the stars and producers of the 2012 hit musical comedy Pitch Perfect and thinks an all-singing, all-dancing version of The Hunger Games should be given the go-ahead.

‘I’m sure someone is thinking about it somewhere. But sure! Anything can work,’ the actress told Guilty Pleasures when she was in London to promote the current Hunger Games sequel – Catching Fire.

Banks does, however, feel she would only want to limit her own Hunger Games role as Effie Trinket to the current film version.

‘I think Effie is going to live in these movies and then that will be it for me,’ she said.

Following the success of Pitch Perfect – which also starred Rebel Wilson, Skylar Astin and Anna Kendrick – the actress is looking forward to reuniting with the cast for a sequel.

‘We are hard at work on the script but it won’t be out until 2015,’ she told us.

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Wednesday 20 November 2013]

Jennifer Lawrence on kissing, Katniss, and falling down stairs

Jennifer Lawrence reckons kissing her hunky Hunger Games co-stars was more of a chore than a delight.

The 23-year-old actress locks lips with both Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson in Hunger Games: Catching Fire but explained she wished she didn’t have to.

‘It was a lose, lose situation!’ she laughed when Metro asked which of her co-stars she preferred kissing in the film when her character Katniss Everdeen is caught in love triangle with Hemsworth’s Gale Hawthorne and Hutcherson’s Peeta Mellark.

After stumbling up the stairs to collect an Oscar for Best Actress after her role in Silver Lining Playbook earlier this year, J-Law also explained she now has a fear of public humiliation.

‘I was just at my brother’s wedding and I had to walk down all these stairs and I thought “I can’t fall again! I can’t!”,’ she told Guilty Pleasures during a chat ahead of the world premiere of Catching Fire in London.

‘I don’t have any plans to avoid future falls. I can only use sheer will power. I will be much more focused when I’m walking.’

She also said she has found time to be a good healer healer in getting over the embarrassment she suffered back in February.

‘There really was no magical recipe for getting over the fact you’ve fallen flat on your face in front of the entire room and then forgetting to thank the director and Harvey Weinstein on stage. Not only did I blow it on the way up, I blew it on stage.’

‘I can’t say a certain remedy or thought made me feel better, it was just time that went by and eventually I could stop slapping myself every time I thought about it.’

While Jen might play the strong willed warrior Katniss in the film series, it is the theme of strength through family she feels she can truly associate with.

‘I wouldn’t be here if my parents hadn’t taken out a second mortgage to let me do this,’ she said, revealing her folks helped her fund her acting dreams.

‘My brothers told them to let me go and I lived without parents for a couple of years. They are there. Everyone else can leave you, but family can’t.’

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Tuesday 12 November 2013]

Sam Claflin: I almost killed my Hunger Games co-star

Sam Claflin confessed he almost killed a co-star for real during the filming of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

The 27-year-old British hunk, who plays fan favourite Finnick Odair in the film series, almost finished off 80-year-old veteran actress Lynn Cohen in the filming process.

‘It was the first day I had to pick Lynn up and whoever decided to give me the responsibility of another human life made a mistake,’ Claflin told Guilty Pleasures, recalling a scene where he runs with the elderly star – who plays Mags – clinging to his back.

‘I picked her up and we were running towards a rocky beach when my knee hit a rock. I should explain – Lynn could not go into the water because it would send her blood pressure ridiculously high,’ he went on.

‘I hit this rock and she was clinging on for dear life and I was asking her to get off. But she didn’t let go and we went in.’

Fortunately an on-set death was avoided. It transpires, though, that the actor did a good job of maiming himself during filming in a jungle.

‘I walked into a bush and nearly blinded myself, I broke a finger… it was treacherous terrain,’ he revealed.

Meanwhile co-star Liam Hemsworth explained he is more of a danger to himself when not on a film set.

‘Last night I was playing with a knife and I smashed it on my finger. It might be broken,’ the Australian actor said.

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Tuesday 12 November 2013]

Josh Hutcherson: Jennifer Lawrence is a good target for jokes

Josh Hutcherson claims Jennifer Lawrence’s Oscar win made her an easy target for jokes on the set of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

The cast and crew started filming the action sequel the day after J-Law scooped her best actress gong for Silver Linings Playbook.

But Hutcherson, 21, revealed it didn’t give her immunity from jokes.

‘Whenever Jennifer forgot a line, Woody [Harrelson, who plays Haymitch Abernathy] would say “You’d better give that Oscar back!” She became a bigger target than before. She was already a good sized target during the first film,’ the American actor laughed.

Co-star Jeffrey Wright, 47, saw Lawrence’s Oscar win as a perfect opportunity to play a practical joke on the young actress.

‘When she won the Oscar I gave her a gift – a Tiffany box filled with about 200 crickets!’ he recalled.

‘What I didn’t calculate is that when you try to cram 200 crickets into a Tiffany box, many of them spill out and escape under your bed or behind your dresser. I couldn’t sleep for about two weeks as I had crickets everywhere.

‘She had revenge by default,’ he added, with a laugh.

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Tuesday 12 November 2013]

Liam Hemsworth: Hollywood needs more female role models like Katniss Everdeen

Liam Hemsworth has called for more strong female characters – like Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games series - to be written for the big screen.

The 23-year-old Aussie hunk – who plays love interest Gale Hawthorne in the film – thinks the journey of Katniss, who fights for her life in a deadly arena and confronts a totalitarian government, gives a positive message to young fans.

‘There should be more strong females on screen,’ he told Guilty Pleasures as the latest film in the series took over London’s Leicester Square.

‘I think it’s such a great thing about these stories is that it is about a young courageous woman who is managing to stay herself throughout these horrible events. I think it’s great.

‘Jennifer is such a larger than life person – she is a good role model,’ he added, praising his co-star.

Discussing his own character, Hemsworth can see some of his own characteristics in the character.

‘He is someone who stands up for what he believes in and protects the people he loves,’ he said.

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Tuesday 12 November 2013]

JENNIFER LAWRENCE

“We broke down a door together – which is a great bonding moment for anybody,” says Jennifer Lawrence of her scene with Jodie Foster, who she was directed by and acted with in upcoming comedy The Beaver. But working with such established actors like Foster and Mel Gibson (who plays the lead in The Beaver) is something Lawrence takes in her stride. “I never felt intimidated,” she says of her famous co-stars. “You see [Foster] in Taxi Driver and you know she is other-humanly, but when you meet her it is impossible to be star struck because she doesn’t act different or weird at all. I can go and film movies with Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster and Charlize Theron – that’s my job – and then I come home and have my normal life.” 
    Although Lawrence emphasises she would not let her acting career define her as a person, she can’t see herself doing anything else. “I don’t feel like I had a choice. I grew up in Kentucky, where being a movie star in LA doesn’t really enter the mind as a possibility. But when it started becoming real it was like, ‘That’s why I love attention so much and study people and record everything they do.’”

[Originally published in Wonderland Magazine Issue 22, April 2010. Photography Kenneth Cappello]

LIAM HEMSWORTH

“I haven’t spoken to him since he got Thor,” jokes Liam Hemsworth of his older brother Chris, who he lost out to for the lead role in Kenneth Branagh and Marvel Studio’s superhero movie. His jealousy is, however, just a joke. “It’s a friendly rivalry,” he says. “We definitely push each other to do better. If he gets a part over me, I’m as happy for him to get it as for myself.” 
    Having moved across the Pacific to LA, the Australian actor is taking steps to build his career from Australian TV actor to Hollywood star.  First up is romantic drama The Last Song opposite singer/songwriter/actress Miley Cyrus – someone he admits to having chemistry with on and off screen. “She was great to work with. She’s such a good person, really professional, and she has achieved so much for her age. It’s kind of incredible,” he says. And how was the experience of taking his first lead in an American film? “It was beautiful weather and we were shooting on the beach all day – it really was like a summer holiday and a really good time in my life. I’m excited for people to see the film.”

[Originally published in Wonderland Magazine Issue 22, April 2010. Photography Kenneth Cappello]

Alexander Ludwig

Alexander Ludwig is not the kind of guy that sits still. Talking to us after a day of surfing in Hawaii, the 19-year-old actor is looking forward to taking to the slopes of his native Canada in the next few days. “I’ve been skiing since I was 17 months old. When I get back to Whistler I do tonnes of extreme skiing on double black slopes, out to the back country – or heliskiing.” His life may sound like something from an action movie, but this only helped for his role in the eagerly anticipated The Hunger Games. Based on the hugely successful novel by Suzanne Collins, the film stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss who is selected to compete in a televised fight to the death against 23 other contestants where only one can survive. As Cato, Ludwig is as close to a villain as any of these “tributes” can be and – as anyone who has read the novel will know – is certainly the most formidable.
“When I got the part I immediately started training with a US Navy SEAL doing tonnes of workouts and learning fight scenes,” he says. As if battling for survival in the futuristic drama wasn’t enough, Ludwig is also enrolled at the University of Southern California, is writing his own scripts and is working on music material with The Fray’s producer, Aaron Johnson. How does he have the time? “I really don’t,” he laughs, “but Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, those guys are my idols and I would love to base my career on what they have done and see what happens.”

[Originally published in Wonderland Magazine, February 2012. Photograph Aingeru Zorita.]