Happy Sad Confused - THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE with Francis Lawrence I Watchalong

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

It was a worldwide phenomenon and with THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES soon to be released it's back! We're sitting down with director Francis Lawrence and watching THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE! Considered by most to be the best of the THG series, Francis talks about joining the franchise, earning the trust of Jennifer Lawrence and Woody Harrelson, and how he crafted an epic blockbuster while prepping two more sequels! If you want to watch the ENTIRE Watchalong, it's available exclusively on our patreon! Patreon.com/happysadconfused SUPPORT THE SHOW BY SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! HelloFresh -- Go to HelloFresh.com/HSCfree and use code hscfree for FREE breakfast for life! ZocDoc -- Go to ZocDoc.com/HAPPYSAD Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh's youtube channel here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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There's a moment here where Pita comes back and Jen and Pita can. for the first time. And I remember one of the times because she was crying, there was this huge glob of snot that was like connected between, I think her. And were you always totally on board

with splitting them into two films? I mean, some series have gotten flack over the years. Oh, yeah, ours got flak. I was not a big fan of doing it. I wish that we would have done just one complete movie. I think what I feel is left on the table is we really are going to be able to do

the R-rated version of Constance. feel like more sort of truthful, honest, you know, scary. Like, if it was, if I was going to get an R, I would have made it an R-rated movie. Hello, dear, happy, said, confused listener. It is I, Josh Harrow. It's with a quick little series of notes before we dive into today's special edition of the podcast with Mr. Francis Lawrence, a special watch-along episode of Happy, Say, Confused.

If you don't know what that is, here's the deal. This is a special mini-series, a spin-off, if you will, of happy, say I confused. We have created a series of very cool episodes in which I sit down with a filmmaker and watch one of their works in full. So you were about to listen or watch a conversation I had with Francis Lawrence, the director of many of the Hunger Games films, including Catching Fire, the film we watched on this episode. You're going to hear the highlights, nearly an hour of highlights. This is the best, juiciest stuff about the making of catching fire and Francis's career. It is a fun listen. I guarantee you that. If you want the entire conversation,

you heard me right. If you want to sit there with Francis and I, turn on catching fire on your TV, and watch along with us, it is there for you, all two hours and 17 minutes worth. It's available exclusively on our Patreon page. Patreon.com slash happy, sad, confused. That's where you will get exclusively the full versions of these special watch-long episodes. So far up is our Louis Latterier episode, watching The Incredible Hulk, and now Francis Lawrence watching The Hunger Games Catching Fire. All right, that's the deal. Here we go, the best of, if you will.

Nearly an hour worth of amazing anecdotes about this ginormous blockbuster that was The Hunger Games Catching Fire. Please enjoy. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused. begins now. I'm Josh Horowitz, and this is a happy, sad, confused watch-along. What are we watching today?

We're watching the movie that gave us a kick-ass Jennifer Lawrence and in a sugar cube peddling Sam Claflin. It is The Hunger Games catching fire. We're watching it with the director, Francis Lawrence. Francis, it's been a while, or are you ready to do this? I'm ready to do this. About a decade has passed. Is this going to be pleasurable or painful to real?

live catching fire? It's going to be pleasurable, I think. It's been a long time since I've seen it, so it'll be good. Good attitude. Here we go, guys. Don, your wet suit, get your trident, your bow and arrow, do what you have to do. Had you been up for the first one? Gary Ross, of course, directed the first one. Were you ever even in the mix to talk about it or not really? You know, the idea was floated by me, and I had read the books and really liked them, or actually I'd read Hunger Games. I don't think all the books were out yet. And My worry at the time was getting the PG-13 rating because it was so violent. And so that kind of scared me off, as did the sort of the budget.

I think they wanted to make it for a very responsible amount. And the building of the world that worried me for the amount I heard they wanted to spend. So I have to say, I was scared off and I did not engage at all. So I can't say I was actually in the running, but it definitely was sort of crossed my desk. It is a remarkable. I mean, we'll get into this as we watch, like a remarkable film to see in retrospect of like how it plays as such a wide audience and a young audience. And it's, well, it has action. It's really a kind of a political thriller. As you say, it's about PTSD, really weighty themes. A lot of like just deep dialogue scenes just for an $865 million movie. It just, it's very unusual in that respect. It is. And I have to say, I think we all felt really lucky to. be a part of the series, and I still do feel lucky to be a part of the series, because, you know, these movies are really, and stories are really about something. And so to kind of hide these

thematic character stories in what feels like spectacle was really exciting. And so for it to have the reach that, that they did was really gratifying. You inherit this amazing cast. What was it like to kind of like join midstream and kind of have to win? Did you feel like you had to kind of win their trust? You know, I did. I definitely did. I was nervous about it. I mean, I certainly, I didn't know many of the people that were in the cast personally. And when I got the job, you know, I was going to have to reach out to everybody and get together or call them or whatever and sort of introduce myself and run them through my approach to the movie because it was going to be different than the first film. And I have to say, everybody was great. I think the first person who actually reached out to me was Elizabeth Banks

and she and I got together at a restaurant here in L.A. And, you know, she's like, all right, so what's the deal? What are we doing? What's the approach? You know, we chatted. That was great. I talked to Jen. I think she was in Prague making a movie. So we spoke on the phone a few times. And then when she's back in town, had breakfast. I met Josh for lunch and met Liam and sort of ran through everybody. One person that was a little tricky was Woody. Really? And Woody, and I don't mean it in a bad way, but Woody is a very, very loyal person. And I think Woody signed on because he really entrusted his role and his time spent in the stories to Gary.

And so then a new director was sort of forced upon him. He didn't know me. And he just voiced his concern. And he wasn't just willing to sort of trust blindly. So I actually went to New York and spent three days, basically, with Woody. Woody was directing a play that was in New York. He was living on the Upper West Side somewhere in a brownstone. It was boiling hot, I remember.

And Woody is entirely anti-air conditioning. So I remember going up and spending time. It was really fun because he's a great guy. But I just remember dripping in sweat in this apartment because it was like 90 degrees, super humid, no AC. see um but anyway i had to do like spend real time with with woody to get him to see that you know i'm really thinking about the characters and thinking about him and that i'm you know responsible and not an asshole right you know um i think of all the people that i inherited

for this for this movie i was the most nervous to meet donald um just because of his experience and the sort of gravitas that he carries. But we had an amazing first meeting. I remember he wanted to meet. It was July 4th, 2012, and he wanted to meet at 9 a.m. at the Pacific Dining Car. And I'm going to reveal something that might get him in trouble with his wife. But he and I met and he decided he wanted to have steak for breakfast.

So we had these giant New York steaks and coffee for breakfast. Amazing. But he said his wife would kill him if he knew, if she knew that we were having these giant. New York Steaks for breakfast. But we had a great time. And I think this was actually the first scene that we shot with Donald. And it was a big scene.

And it sort of vacillated in page count in various drafts of the movie. There was a time where the scene was only about one and a half pages long, which would be under two minutes long in theory to a version that was, I think, six and a half, seven pages that we ended up shooting. And then it was sort of cut down to the scene, which I think is around four minutes long or something. But the heights of her fame, this was probably, this is like apex, Jennifer Lawrence, I mean, she's been riding it out for another 10 years still at the height.

But, like, yeah, I mean, she certainly was famous. But I will say that I think there was, there was a time. It was basically right around when Catching Fire was released that I think she hit. Yeah. I think that's where the frenzy was really, really changed. And there was a mass frenzy because she'd also won the Academy Award. Right. Didn't she win it, like, towards the end of the shoot?

She won. So we went back after New Jersey. Jersey, we went back for two more weeks in Hawaii because we didn't finish Hawaii, which we can get into later. Yep. Because we were doing IMAX and it was tougher than everybody thought. So we went back and it was the Sunday before we started shooting again in Hawaii. She won the Academy Award and we had an Academy Award watch party for her in the hotel, so

where the sort of, you know, traveling crew got together and watched her fall on the stairs. That's right. Was paparazzi all over you guys? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Less so, I think, in the shooting, for the most part in shooting catching fire, paparazzi actually shot when Jen and I first met for breakfast in Santa Monica. I remember there was shots that somebody got of us waiting for our cars at the end of breakfast.

Yeah, sorry about that. I just saw you guys. It had a long lens. I figured I should, you know, make some extra money. Yes. But then I think for the most part, they left us alone in Atlanta. And then there was a bit of a paparazzi presence. in Hawaii, certainly in certain areas where it was more accessible. So I think her connection with PETA from the first games, a lot of it is sort of like trauma bonding, right? They're going through these horrible things together. You kind of bond. And then you go back home, right? And you kind of want to forget what happened in the games.

And so, you know, the idea that PETA gets sort of pushed aside and she goes back to the person she shares the life experience with at home, Gail. And then this is that kind of, you know, trying to sort of come back. together they're both going to have to sort of experience this tour or the games again and that kind of trauma bonds them once again i always thought this seems like really happy with the way this sequence turned out with the speeches and emotional and with the old man and bringing in that james newton howard score just the right time yeah the right theme and and then also just crazy how this you know this symbol right of the salute oh yeah started to kind of carry around the world and was ended up, you know, being used by sort of groups protesting in Southeast Asia and

really incredible to see the reach of sort of symbols in the movie. Yeah. I mean, you must, do you still feel it? Like when when people recognize you or know that you've done these films, yeah, this is this is one of those series of films that really had a lasting impact on a kind of a generation, truly. Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, I mean, everyone's in a while, you know, you hear about how important these movies were to somebody at a certain point in their life, which is impactful for me. I also remember at the end when we finished the Mockingjay movies and part of, I think, the last press tour was that they had opened a Hunger Games Museum. And I think it started in Times Square. And so we had this opening and I remember me and

Jen and Josh and Liam and Nina, the producer, toured it for the first time. And when you hear the music and you see the pictures of the sets and the locations and you get the costumes and the props and the interactive displays and you know there's something kind of incredibly moving about having worked on something and created something that's like deserving of a museum yeah so that that was pretty incredible jen as you all know as i've experienced is such like a fun human being to be around and this film like talk about like a true acting performance like she's not she barely cracks a smile in this film this is like this is a damaged woman that's really holding on by a thread yes was it tough on her like do you remember like is she able to kind

turn it on and off a hundred percent she can turn it on and off and um i think you know because i did four movies with her i will say that by the time i did the last one with her which was red sparrow tougher scenes did become tougher for her um but here i think she was 21. one years old and she could turn it on and off with a switch and i think it drove some other actors not this group but some other actors kind of crazy because it was easy for her and like come on yeah that drove people some people nuts that's amazing that because she could be joking around and laughing and being really silly and then you're like say action and she just becomes entirely present yeah um it's really an amazing

thing to watch. It's a really incredible thing to watch. One of, like, I would say a handful of directors that's often talked about, like, you know, the cliche is world building, which is like, and truly, like, without blowing smoke, like you do it at a very high level and like not many filmmakers can do that. Is that something you relish? 100%. Yeah. I honestly, I think it's, it's one of the most important factors for me in deciding to take on a job. And honestly, it was one of the big sort of deciding factors for me taking this job because I would probably not have done it if I was just going to if I was inheriting a cast and entirely inheriting a world that I couldn't expand upon right but I knew in reading the book again that I could I could change

and tweak the capital and see something new I could see more of district 12 and make that more expansive. I had an entirely new arena that I could I could work on. So I think we're nearing a big introduction. Yeah, Phil Hoffman, which I definitely want to talk to you a lot about Phil. Yeah. I mean, so he obviously enters the franchise with this film. How did it happen? Was it was it tough? Was it tough to get Phil on board? He was not somebody that did a lot of blockbusters of this time. He did not. No, I wouldn't say that it was tough, but I remember that when I read it and I signed on that he was my first choice to play Plutarch. And Nina and Suzanne and I all went to New York and saw him in Death of a Salesman. I saw that. And we reached out, he was amazing in it. And we

reached out to him and his reps said, you know, he really doesn't want to engage in anything until he's finished because it was, you know, that was taking a toll. And he decided to do it. We had a small window here on catching fire. I think he was in around for maybe three weeks. First of all, that must have been a good day when you hear Phil is on board. Yeah, for sure. Everybody was really excited. Everybody was really, really, really excited. Jen was, Donald was, because Donald was going to have a bunch of scenes with them. Super, super excited. This was a really tough scene. This is probably one of the toughest scenes I've ever had to shoot. Why is that? Well, you know, they're supposed to be dancing and, you know, not like anything really choreographed, but we did get somebody to sort of teach

them how to basically rotate, but Phil didn't want to dance. And so they're just standing there kind of rocking back and forth. And to make it feel like they're dancing, we have to have the steady cam operator. My operator I work with all the time, Dave Thompson, do circles around them. It was really interesting, I have to say, I mean, you know, Phil was going through some stuff. right um and none of us knew it and so as excited as we all were it was he remained a bit of an outsider on this shoot and it was i have you know to be honest a little bit of a bummer and but when the movie was finished and he saw the movie uh he really really really loved it like he was so excited about it. And sort of the personality completely changed with me, with everybody. And

he probably had his, I mean, whatever personal stuff he was going through, but he also probably had, he was a true artist and had his guards up and like, I'm joining this franchise. Like, is this the right thing? And it's weird. And it was weird for him because, you know, like his, I think his first day actually was in the control room. So he's wearing, you know, this weird slightly, let's say, sci-fi kind of outfit. I don't remember what color it is, but, you know, it's weird. then you walk into this control room and I think he's feeling was feeling very unmoored emotionally. And I have found over the years too that often especially great actors and actors have had a ton of experience and especially if they're only going to do two or three weeks on your movie come in and are definitely at arm's length unless you know them because they have to see like am I going to be monitoring and policing myself or am I going to put my trust into this person? And the truth is we didn't have long enough to sort of to build trust.

So it was really the result of the object of the movie in the end that sort of bonded, bonded us. And honestly bonded Phil with everybody else in the cast, too. And the experience, I mean, again, not to rebel and all the sadness, but it was during Mockingjay that he passed, I believe, right? So he didn't quite finish that. No, he had eight days left on the Mocking J movies. Yeah. And significant scenes, too. not just sort of appearances in scenes he had i think he had three significant dialogue scenes

left i can't imagine the challenge as a filmmaker you've just lost somebody that you're you know you bonded with as an artist and a friend and you also have the challenge of i also have to finish my my damn movie yeah which which which is a which is a bit of a mind fuck right because there's the the work side of you that's like yeah we have to do this but you know i at that point It was a morning. Lost a friend, a colleague, as did the entire crew in the cast. So there's a, it was a really rough time getting wind in our sales again on the Mocking Jays. And, you know, it happened in February and we didn't wrap the Mocking Jee movies.

I think it was until July. And, you know, we took some time off. And then when we started, we started with small scenes with like Jen and Liam. without any extras, and we slowly started sort of reintroducing cast members again. And everybody, as they came back, had to kind of go through their sort of re-entry process because everybody was really feeling it. But I will say, too, that I probably learned the most about acting, working with him. And just in the end, just sort of talking about stuff and really drilling down on scenes and

characters and what's under everything in a scene and really watching and working with him and seeing him actually be able to change the approach to scenes. It was such an education. During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, Lisa 2026 XE90 plug-in hybrid from $599 biweekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience Event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com.

Are you looking for a movie review show where the critic is at the top of his or her game, meticulously breaking down and explaining exactly why a film does or does not work? Well, good luck with the search, because we're having fun here on Adam does movies. Each and every week, I hit the big blockbusters, I cover the streamers, and I even toss in some movie news for fun. Check out the show on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube, and hopefully we can do movies together. Hot. So, Chad, who we were talking about earlier, off camera. Oh, Chad's the Hellsky.

This is like one of the only sort of second unit sequences that Chad, who was our, Stahelsky, was our second unit and stunt coordinator did this, did this sequence. I don't remember what we were off doing when he was doing this, yes, but peacekeepers pillaging and burning and. Chad will do that. Chad can do that. And the flame throwers here in the hob. Is that tough to give, like to entrust a second unit director to? A hundred percent. The leap of faith, right?

Yes, 100 percent. And I think part of it is you can talk all you want about, you know, the story points and how things should feel. But also I think because I think very visually that, you know, it's hard to see somebody else's interpretation of what's going to be a part of, you know, my movie. But Chad did a, he did a great job with that bit. I don't remember what movie was on. I actually think that it was on the mocking jays, but Woody actually played this great joke on me. He did it on other people, but I definitely. fell for it where he had what he's always getting into like sort of accidents so he showed up one

time on one of the movies and half his body was all like shredded and he had like fallen out of a tree or something and and there was like he had been in like a kite surfing accident so he was always had some kind of injury and he was also always riding his bike he did a lot of cycling and I was at dinner one night and he sent me a picture and his whole face was all bloody and he said he had been cycling and slipped and fell without wearing a helmet and gravel and he called me up and he sounded out of it

and I was telling him he's got to go to a hospital and he's like but what are we going to do I shoot tomorrow and I'm like we'll figure it out and we'll figure it out get to a hospital what I didn't know is he'd actually hired our makeup effects crew to come over to his house and they spent like four hours doing all this makeup on him His commitment to the con, that's really admirable in a way.

And he spent, you know, I don't know, a few hours calling everybody he knew and telling him he'd been horribly injured in a bicycling accident. Well, that means you did, you broke through. He clearly considered you a friend if he was willing to fuck with you in that way. That, and I think if I remember right, I may have been the only person to tell him to go to the hospital and wasn't thinking just thinking about, I think he was expecting me to be worried more about the shoot than his help. You passed. You did it right. So what kind of direction does Jen generally need, if at all? Like, what do you find yourself giving her notes on?

Usually, you know, usually I try to orient her in the script. I will say, in my experience, Jen is not a big study of scripts that she usually has read the script once, maybe twice. you know, she signs on and then she'll probably read whatever draft is getting shot. But usually for almost any given scene, she's not even aware of what you're doing the day until the morning of. Oh, wow. So she'll acting on this thing. She just needs to know, where was I? Where am I going?

So usually I'll do that kind of work for her where I sort of orient her into reminding her what's happened before, what needs to happen to, you know, help with what's ahead, all of that. And I will say 97% of the time, she's sort of dead on and her instincts are kind of right. Occasionally she'll start up and she'll go in a direction that's not bad, but may be wrong narratively. Sure. And then you just kind of reorient her. But, you know, all actors are different, you know, and talking about the different personalities. Like where Jen, because she's sort of so instinctual and it's all very immediate for her, she's usually really good immediately. because I think the newer the scene

the better it kind of works for her the more sort of in it she can feel and the more you do it the longer it goes the more takes I think she starts to kind of wear out it becomes boring and it goes away but people like Phil Hoffman

he actually uses sort of early takes kind of like rehearsal too since we don't have a huge rehearsal process on these movies and so he's usually better like sometimes 10 takes in Yeah. Where you finally lock in.

And so it's always interesting trying to find a balance with people that are like good out of the gate versus people that want to kind of keep grinding away at it. I think I can now make a guess on what actors may be resented Jen's ability just to turn it on. Not him, no, because he has enough experience. There's, there's, you know, a few actors in the mocking J movies. I won't name them because, I mean, I like them, but I could see that it like really. Yeah, yeah. also because Jen is, you know, so fun to be around and really jokes around and with everybody. And I think some people want to, like, be silent.

Yeah, yeah. And, like, think about what they're going to do. Yes. Have you kind of, now that you've kind of, you've directed another Hunger Game story that focuses on the backstory of this character. Have you kind of like, I don't know, you must have a great, a different appreciation of snow. I do. I mean, I obviously knew, you know, Snow. I didn't know his entire backstory. I mean, that was obviously not told to us when we were doing these movies. But I sort of understood Snow's kind of philosophical underpinnings. So it's nice having done the new movie that's all about him becoming the man we're familiar with and kind of seeing what that process was like for him in getting him to think the way he thinks. One of the great things, And I mean, this is always an approach I try to take, but something that Donald did was,

Donald and I never tried to judge the character, right? You know, because he is truly the antagonist of the first three books and four movies. And so lots of people may think he's very villainous and evil, and the truth is, as Donald and I, and all of our conversations never thought of him that way, right? You have to kind of think of villains as the heroes of their own stories.

And he has a real belief sense. system based on certain philosophies, which makes him believe that people have to be ruled this way, as opposed to doing it just for power, just for evil. Did you encourage Tom your young snow to look at Donald's performance? No, you know, I mean, I wasn't going to stop him from watching, and I'm sure he went back and watched all these movies. What we specifically talked about was not trying to mimic Donald, not trying to speak just like him, not trying to move just like him, not looking at like Young Donald, you know,

movies and things. Just because that would like box him in to something that. Yeah, and I didn't want it to feel like he was doing an imitation of somebody, you know. I just wanted him to, to, you know, play the character. Do you see any similarities? Obviously, Rachel Zegler's her own woman, similarities between her and Jen in some ways as your female protagonist? No.

I think that the character, and I don't mean that personally. I just mean like the characters are so wildly different. You know, Katniss, I mean, they're both survivors and they're both smart. But other than that, there's really not much that sort of connects them. You know, like a provider for the family and can hunt and is sort of so physically kind of capable, is very stoic. I mean, I will say too, probably, you know, seems kind of somewhat asexual almost. and that, you know, there's not much use of her sexuality as a character, whereas, like, Rachel's character is, you know, not stoic and quiet.

Doesn't seem to be a big thinker, but is, but just, you know, much more of a performer, uses her charisma, uses her charm, uses her sexuality, has a different kind of damage, I think, than Katness. So very, very different kinds of characters. So we haven't talked about kind of, like, the, I mean, you alluded to this, but the choice in a different aesthetic, a different, you know, you're not doing shaky cam like Gary did in the first one. Was that a big, big choice? Did you ever consider being a little bit more consistent with the visual style of the first one? I did not. I mean, so, you know, one of the things, it's weird because it's a big job to get. But I have to say, going in for my meetings and pitching what I would do was probably the least nervous I've ever been when having to pitch somebody in hopes of getting a job. And I think it was, just it was honestly it was down to me and one one other director I think it was a needless to say this was a hotly contested job this year you're kind of you know there's a um the audience is waiting

for this so that's a nice first for sure and so yeah exactly exactly and but i just remember like you know knowing who the other person was and thinking like okay well they're either going to take what i've got off or or him because it's we're nothing like one another oh interesting and you know I just had a very specific point of view of I'm going to do it my way. Oh, I think I remember this. Another great filmmaker, but a different kind of filmmaker, yeah. Great, great filmmaker. Rhymes with Schmenet filler.

Exactly. Okay. People can do research if they want. Yes. I think he's fantastic. Oh, money, ball, please. I mean, structurally, it's such a fascinating movie. I mean, I don't know what, probably, you probably don't enter the arena until, what,

like 90 minutes into the, 80, 70, 80 minutes into the movie. so it's kind of like you're withholding it's a few different movies in one it is yeah and it yeah it was interesting structurally and I remember working on this and this is my first movie but we started a bit of a pattern Suzanne and I where when I was starting this this movie there was no script there was just a book and there was a script that was due and it came in right before I was going to go to New York to meet Suzanne and originally I was just going to meet her to kind of pick her brain about the world get as much info out of her as I could. And the script came in, and it wasn't the movie I certainly wanted to make, but I think

everybody kind of felt the same. And we were sort of going to start over. And so my meetings with Suzanne turned into she and I going through the book and creating the beat sheet of what we thought the movie would be. And what was really tricky was the section sort of leading up to this point. Because it was sort of clear, like, where she stars. and Snow's visit, and you've got to go on the tour, and you haven't proven yourself, you haven't done enough.

But then there's this weird time where she goes back home. And for a long time, and in the book, there's this huge section of her back home and finding out she's going into games and them starting to train again. And there's all the stuff with the wedding dress, her getting fit for the wedding. And even Suzanne, funny enough,

called it the cinematic dead zone. She knew that in the book, that in the book, We can cut all this. Yeah, yeah. Well, that we had to figure out how to get by it quickly. Yeah. But it was really tricky sort of getting to the point of like, but once you get here,

it kind of started to find a groove. Yeah, and you find a groove as you start to also, we're about to start to meet your new cast members. Yes. It's, they inject a lot of new, different life into the film. We shot in this hotel. It's the Marriott downtown in Atlanta. It's a very cool sort of interior of a hotel. and we shot there for two days

and we did this scene and I think there's that elevator scene that everybody loves with Joanna Mason where she takes off her clothes and it's funny because when we do that elevator scene with Joanna we had sort of PA

sending the elevator up it's a working hotel from the bottom to the top where we sort of timed out the length of the scene and the PA had at one point hit the wrong floor so it went up

went up and Jenna had like Yeah, mind you, this is where she's stripping. Yeah, she pulled off her clothes and turned around to exit and the door is open. And there was this this dude standing there with a Starbucks cup, like waiting for the elevator. With a story for a lifetime. And there's basically a naked Jenna Malone, Jen, Woody, Josh, a cameraman, like people holding lights. He was like, I'm tripping. Something's happening.

Just like frozen. So we can start to talk about some of the casting because there was, I mean, I remember. Let's start with Sam. We're about to meet him in a kind of an iconic scene from the book. Finnic was a big point for the fans. They wanted to see you cast the right guy. I love Sam Claflin. He's fantastic in this.

How tough was it to find the right guy? There were a lot of big names that were mentioned. It was tough. We saw and read a lot of people. I would say we saw and read a lot of people for Joanna, too, for Jenna's role. And it was, you know, tough to find somebody that felt for Finnic like they had not just the good looks. There's a lot of good looking people in, you know, the acting world. But somebody that had the right kind of charisma, the charm, the sort of hint of irreverence, you know, the real acting chops, you know, in the end, you know, you may not know it here in this movie, but in the end you want to really like them and kind of fall in love with them.

So to find somebody that had kind of all those facets, it was really tricky. But then, you know, Sam came along and he was great. So can you confirm or deny any of the other names? There was talk of Taylor Kitch, Garrett Headland, Army Hammer. Garrett, Garrett, Headland, I met with for sure. I mean, it's so long ago now. I do not think he read for it, but I met with him. And then I also feel like there was a movie that I was attached to at the time.

which was unbroken, the Zamperini story. And I felt like Garrett Headland only met with me because he wanted to, I think he wanted to talk about that and not this. Yeah, but most of those other people I didn't meet. Okay. I didn't even meet with. It's a lot of fan casting at the time too. That's my voice right there, Tributes Manta. Amazing.

And another weird little story. If you look over the archways, the two tunnels that lead into where the, chariots go there are these little numbers i think they say like pdl with a number and those are the addresses of two clubs that all of us right there with pdl 738 and over the other one those are addresses of clubs that we all used to go to in atlanta so little yeah little inside life guide for yeah those of you visiting atlanta so jenna kills it in this role clearly yeah um so when she we read a lot of people for Joanna. And I remember sitting in the casting director's office

and Jenna was going to come in. And I don't know what had happened. I forget. Something had happened. And when Jenna came in, she was mad. And she walked in and she was like, her face was like slightly red. And she seemed really annoyed.

And she had this complete edge. And she really intimidated me. and like her performance was so great and then it was like at the end of the you know the few scenes we were doing it's like wow that was great and then all of a sudden she's like oh great by the way jens look in that elevator yes no that's great and that's just all that's pure gen that's probably the most gen i was gonna say that feels that catness has ever been totally so what a what a pair of actors here i know i know i love them so much yeah jeff geoffrey and i we met i tried to get him to be in constantine and he and i met in brooklyn once and then he ended up taking i think it was the mansurian candidate jonathan demi's movie yep so we didn't get to work together until here and then amanda plumber i've always just been such a huge fan of

yeah such a unique and we just reached out again she was my first first choice and we just reached out and she's like, okay. Who are the filmmakers that made most of the biggest impact? Terry Gilliam's another world builder. Are there, if you had to kind of like your, your Mount Rushmore filmmakers that made the biggest impact on your aesthetic, your approach. I don't know about my about my aesthetic. I mean, lots of people made an impact. You know, I mean, I grew up with the, I'm sort of the Star Wars generation. So Star Wars is a kid, all the Spielberg movies, you know, Raiders, Jaws. E.T. Close Encounters. That stuff. Yeah. But I will say my parents split up when I was about 14 and most of the time I spent with my dad was going to the movies. And so when I was in high school, I saw, he and I saw everything. And I remember being around 16 or so when Raising Arizona came out and Martin Scorsese's After Hours. And those movies suddenly made me think of movies in a different way as not just entertainment but art.

and it's kind of what drove me into studying film and looking into it actually as a career and not just something I liked to watch. You mentioned Star Wars. I mean, there have to be like empire has to come up in discussions when you're doing a middle section. When I did this, it got brought up a lot when people started having such a great reaction to this as a sequel. I think I remember in the, you know, doing the rounds of press for it that that that, that, that kind of was coming up quite a bit. But you weren't actively thinking about it.

No, not at all. Because I feel like the, well, we'll get to it when we get to the end. I feel like the end in particular actually has Empire lives. Yeah. No, I wasn't thinking about it at all. I think in terms of movies that I referenced for this, the stuff I looked at the most were movies about the Vietnam War. And a lot of it was, you know, in terms of like sort of soldiers and PTSD and, you know,

these on the most general level are about. consequence of war, but also because it was in the jungle. So I was looking at things like Apocalypse now and platoon and... So where's your Star Wars movie? Have you had the Kathy Kennedy conversation? I have not. Really? No, no. I have not. You'd take that beating?

You know, honestly, I don't think so. I don't. And just... Is that seeing what it's done to other filmmakers? No, no, not at all. I mean, had that... been a conversation you know but prior to jj doing his first i would have that would have been a really interesting and exciting conversation but as soon as you know there's a plan for you know x amount of movies you feel like you know that you're just one of 15 and you go i don't know it's it's it's it's sort of pop out of the noise at that point and that was purely it because you know

i think some of those new movies are fantastic yeah Goodbye. Summer movies, Hello Fall. I'm Anthony Devaney. And I'm his twin brother, James. We host Raiders of the Lost Podcast, the Ultimate Movie Podcast, and we are ecstatic to break down late summer and early fall releases. We have Leonardo DiCaprio leading a revolution in one battle after another, Timothy Salome playing power ping pong in Marty Supreme.

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I'm Brad Milkey. I'm the host of Start Here, the Daily Podcast from ABC News. And every morning, my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand with just enough context so you can listen, get it, and go on with your day. So, kickstart your morning. Start Smart with Start Here and ABC News, because staying informed shouldn't feel overwhelming. What is it like for you? I mean, having helmed these large-scale films, franchise films, you must always, Star Wars apparently not, but like otherwise, I'm sure you've been offered the Marbles, the D.C. has at least had those meetings. Is it a tough, is it a tough thing? kind of figure out like it must be very attractive certain things must be very attractive on paper and then to then you have to figure out is this worth two and a half three years of my time yeah that's that's that's i mean that's definitely a part of it i've honestly never been offered a marvel thing really nope um i've definitely i've had meetings over the years with dc i mean i did a dc constantine was you know dc vertigo so i've meetings have had meetings with them over the years but who's your

favorite comic book character besides Constantine? I was going to say it's Constantine Who would you? Okay, they call with Wolverine or Superman or Batman Is there one that you would have

a tough time saying no to? Francis, we're giving you free reign you can do what you want with this character. Really? No, not really. And again, just because you know, I feel like there's people that are like much better experts

at Batman than I am or Superman than I am. And I also have to say and okay, look, Batman's probably the closest to my aesthetic of the more mainstream comic book characters. I love Constantine. I lean toward the darker side of things, personally.

So that's why I love Constantine, you know, the kind of noir character and irreverent and has his demons. So if and when, I know we're way off topic, but if and when you get a chance to do another Constantine, which I know has been discussed. Like how much of, I love that film, but like, did that, was that, In Rep, that was your first film. I don't know if it was compromised in any ways. If it felt like your undiluted vision, like what, what's left on the table that you weren't able to do in the first Constantine?

Well, the way that it was diluted was Constantine is definitely not a PG-13 character. And the thing, the sort of, you know, the big moment of selling out for all of us making that movie was saying yes to it being a PG-13 movie. If we said, no, no, no, it's got to be R. We wouldn't have had nearly the amount of money we had to. make it so i get that but the truth is it's an r rated character the problem was we followed all of the rules for a pg 13 movie with that and we still got an r and there was no arguing we went back and tried and they they wouldn't they wouldn't even give us notes on how to change it they just said no it's too intense it has this sort of it's almost a badge of honor they're like no you've just made too

dark a feeling of a movie but the problem is it really is a pg 13 movie so i think what i feel is left on the table is we really are going to be able to do the R-rated version of Constantine, the like more sort of truthful, honest, you know, scary. Like, if it was, if I was going to get an R, I would have made it an R-rated movie. Wait, can we go back and shoot again? If you're only going to give me this R. Yeah. So when you were making the, at what point did you sign on for Mocking Jay?

Were you done with shooting already or has it already? No. No. So when I, when I signed on to do catching fire, they had already had plans that, you know, I saw it in 2012 and they were like, Catching Fire is coming out, November 13, MockingJ 1, November 14, Mockingjay 2, November 15. And I knew for them to hit those dates that they were actually going to have to start shooting the Mocking Jay movies before we even released Catching Fire.

So I thought, well, this will be kind of weird because I'll be doing this. And then when we're in post, there's going to be some new director. It's kind of what happened with Star Wars, as I recall. Yeah, it was like some new director is going to be around and they're going to be prepping. And, you know, you know, because I thought, I mean, how are they going to hire me for two more sequels when they haven't even seen, you know, any of what I've done yet in this? But for whatever reason, Nina and the studio, everybody was feeling so comfortable with the approach. my process that they actually asked me to do all the movies while we were still in prep on this oh wow and were you always totally on board with splitting them into two films i mean some some series

have gotten flack over the years but oh yeah ours got flack i was i was not a big fan of doing it i wish that we would have done just one complete movie um and you know jumping to ballad of songbirds and snakes when i got involved in that and that's the longest of the books uh you know the idea was you know, should we split it? I was like, no way. Not too, no way. I don't care if it's a long movie. We're doing one standalone movie.

I'm not taking shit for splitting a movie again. So when you look at the two Mockingjay movies, do you feel it just would have been better served as one story? 100%. Yeah. 100%. Just because it feels, and like I understand, you know, now, you know, you sort of, I don't know, maybe you sort of trick yourself into thinking that you're telling these two sort of distinct

stories, which we kind of are, but it still is a little manipulative, you know, that when you do a first half of a movie and then you're going to make people wait a year for second half, I can see how it would annoy some, as opposed to just doing a complete piece of work. And I'm so happy with this transition into the games, too. I really loved it. So you come off of this like really emotional and horrible scene of Sina. And then she goes up this elevator, James Escore. And then in iMacs this is actually where the letterbox goes up yep and this shot here this was actually our last shot in Atlanta before we moved to Hawaii

goosebumps Francis it's a good moment yeah and then you reveal it so happy with the design of this too yeah poor Jen is just under duress for this entire movie she's I remember there was I don't remember if we left it in or not I'm gonna see but there's a moment here where Peter comes back and Jen and Peter Kiss for the first time and I remember one of the times

because she was crying there was this huge glob of snot that was like connected I think hers because she's the one sobbing sure that makes sense yeah yeah you know for the snots can we say

oh no maybe we erased it or used a different take but there was one where it was like and of course you know Jen's personality she's like show me it again show me it again So at the time, what would you say degree of difficulty of this film was compared to something like I Am Legend or Constantine?

Was this probably a bigger budget than those? Or was it maybe not I Am Legend? It was about the same size as I Am Legend budget-wise. I mean, I Am Legend couldn't have been an easy film. That's a challenge. No, I mean, what's interesting about I Am Legend, is that in general, I am legend, there's a simplicity to it because primarily it's a guy and a dog. Right.

So, you know, whereas part of what's really difficult about these movies, you know, and even like looking at the Mockingjay movies, often I'm doing sequences where every day I'm dealing with 14 actors. So even if only two of them are talking, you still have 14 actors. You've got Julianne Moore, Phil Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, like Woody Harrelson, all these huge actors that. you know all need and I don't not just need attention but you know you have to talk to him about the scene and help block and it's a lot plus you know you get the sort of complications of big set pieces and things whereas like i am legend once you clear a street which is a big deal you're dealing with you know a guy and his dog for the most part so just in terms of complication it was not nearly as complicated as as a movie like this so

If you didn't test screen this, it must have been a moment to the first time you saw it with an audience, like the premiere. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever seen this with an audience. What? Do you not like to do that? Too nervous? I don't really. You should try it sometime. These movies work with an audience. Yeah. I've attended some of your premieres. They're fun.

Yeah. Usually, I mean, I don't usually sit through any of the any of my premieres. Usually I like, you know, do the sort of intro or whatever and we go have dinner or something. So you've had some experience with people really like at the, at that kind of crazy fame level. I mean, again, Rob at Water for Elephants, that was madness. It was madness. It was insane. It was madness. I have to say it was interesting because the first day I remember rolling up to set and we were shooting sort of northwest of Los Angeles.

And we were on this big private property. And as I was pulling up to the sort of entrance gate, I saw all these people with signs. And because of all the animals we were using, I was really scared. And I initially thought, oh, man, the animal activists are out day one. And I thought it was going to be sort of PETA. And we had made a deal, too, that we weren't using primates. Sure. Because, you know, they don't like using primates or elephants, but we had an elephant.

And it was all Rob fans. It was all Rob fans. And they were there every day trying to get, you know, some sort of contact with him. And then I remember at the end of the job, we moved to Tennessee and shot in Chattanooga. And there would be girls camped out in the hallways of our hotel. Yeah. And they had put me in the room that normally Rob would have probably gotten. So to throw them off.

So every night I would come back from dinner. Just see the look of disappointment on Midea fan. They would be like, is. Is he here? I'm like, no, it's not here. Going in my room, there's be like six girls sitting in the hallway. And obviously a hotel that's not used to dealing with stuff like that, so they're not wandering around with security.

Jen was not happy with me about this scene, making her eat the raw fish. Not a sushi fan? Not a, no. She ate sushi, but I think there was something, you know, like when you're in a restaurant, but we did get sushi-grade fish. It was a snapper. And I had to prove to her that you could actually, that you could eat it so I took a nice chunk of it myself but she still was really not happy about just like biting into a solid raw fish right I'll jump into I'll dive into water for you I'll fight made up baboons but I will not eat this raw fish yeah I forget are you do you like the ending that went to theaters for I am legend or I prefer the original ending to the two that we have but the truth is now I would have done

and built it to be able to do the ending from the novella, to truly just do that story. But I think, you know, with the money being spent, everybody was nervous about doing something so nihilistic. Yeah. But looking back, I feel like everybody went to see The Last Man on Earth and enjoyed it for that reason and would have still enjoyed it with the nealistic ending.

Were you involved in all these kind of stop and starts of these sequels over there, sequels prequels, or you? I mean, you know, right after I did it, I was involved in trying to come up with a prequel sequel. And then I remember, then I was really out of it for a long time. And then I heard that they were just going to remake it, like reboot it. It's like, wow, that seems fast, but okay.

Aren't they now considering something with Michael B? Yeah, there's a possible sequel that's out there now. But you're not associated with that, at least right now. I've been, you know, I've been in conversations, but nothing I'm lost. in on but we put um we built an island on a like a motorized um lazy susan and it spun around at like 25 miles an hour or something it looks it we'll see that in a minute everybody was you know putting on seasick motion sickness wristbands and taking dramamine were you at a comfortable safe distance or were you experiencing it as well uh i mixed it up i didn't ride

nearly as much as like the camera operator and uh yeah here we go and the actors but we did it basically to again to be outside but also so you know you get the idea of light sort of shifting around like i don't know what josh had done prior to hunger games that's he's a young guy josh is very yeah he's young he's very athletic i remember he got really excited in the fog sequence we were shooting some running with a cable cam and these cable cam guys have done lots of action sequences and the great thing about that is they can go make you go really fast and track running and they told him that he was faster than

Tom Cruise and he was like he wore that like a badge of honor that he was running through the at a speed that was faster than a Tom Cruise run and he was stoked about that weirdly now that I'm remembering it I feel like this sequence not them at the beach but this sequence may have been the first sequence she did having just come back from winning her Academy Award oh wow yes it was like our startup to finish the two the Hawaiian stuff. She's like getting out all the award season angst. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, I think it was a Tuesday because I think she won the award, Sunday night. Monday she went and got her hair dyed again. And then flew to Hawaii and was on set on Tuesday to do this sequence. Wow. Deja vu moments when you started to shoot Ballad of songbird and snakes. Yeah, I have to say that one of the weirder things,

things was, you know, it's weird when you don't have any of the same cast back. And, you know, we're shooting in new places and all this kind of stuff. And a lot of my crew was back, which was great. But the first time, I remember, we were working with the stunt coordinator and the new cast for a rehearsal of the first sort of fight sequence in the arena. And I remember walking into the soundstage and everybody got moved to their positions and they were in the circle around the weapons. And I was like, okay, we're back. We're back in the Hunger Games. Yeah. I remember in my first conversation actually with Jen. She was in Prague. She was shooting a movie. And I remember I think

she was talking to me from like a bathtub. And of course, you know, the average person meeting you for the first time wouldn't tell you they're in a bathtub. But Jen, of course, had to tell me she's in a bathtub. Every bodily function. It's describing. Yeah, exactly. But I did talk about how I really wanted to flesh out the relationships with Bepida and with Gail. And she was really nervous about it because I think she thought like that stuff was the most kind of YA of the material. And I had to sort of talk to her about kind of the reasoning and the stuff we talked about about how, you know, the relationships are about shared experiences and not, like high school

dynamics. Well, again, I think it was, it was. suffering a little bit from the comparisons at the time people were conflating it with the other YAA franchises and it's you know it couldn't be more different than Twilight at the end of the day it's not that yes um yeah and like and divergent too yeah for why do you think the YA I mean so many you know all filmmaking is cyclical the western comes and goes etc but like why a there were a lot of folks that tried and failed in the wake of these films was it just lesser source material you know that's what I think I think it's lesser source material I mean I think

that these hit because they're you're not actually dealing with like teenage stuff so because there's teenagers in it some people may view it that way but you're not right they're really about the the consequence of war in many facets of that right you know loss and you know you never come out without some kind of wound and PTSD and you know propaganda whatever you want to sort of talk about with it, but they're not about sort of just like teen dynamics. And I think the problem is so much of why A is just about teen dynamics. Funny, just like side story here, we initially in their first time in Hawaii tried to shoot this. And we had this huge crane with this giant lighting rig because we had to create light that came in from the above the canopy of the trees.

And we're in the middle of the jungle. and this light rig goes up and the crane breaks down they can't move it they can't retract it they can't do anything so we end up shutting production down this is when we went home

and we had to do this our second time out but they couldn't figure out how to get the crane down for a month so this crane sat in the middle of the jungle through storms and that's actually Jen in that claw she wrote it all the way up

that's a hero shot right there. Yeah. But see, again, this stuff, this is all, this kind of imagery is all pulled from like Vietnam movies. Right. Sure. I remember there's like the low shot of the basket with the body spinning from like Jacob's Ladder. Even though it's not a Vietnam movie, there's the Vietnam element to. Was the ending kind of like just as scripted? Like you knew exactly how this was going to the revelation moment with Gail. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The hardest thing was was and Michael aren't wrote this draft with us who's great and he's great at endings and what we really worked on was the idea of shooting shooting the shield out right so it's like what all builds up to that

because that's a whole different epiphany where you're sort of you've got remember who real enemy is and connecting it back and the bracelet that effie had given that he now has and sort of the math of all of that to leading up to not shooting him shooting the shield yep and like i said no dialogue you're just kind of like in her head like just looks and yeah yeah and trying to understand that that was like what we really really really focused on this sort of just all made sense from the book what it was going to be and leading into this that's a cliffhanger yeah you should make a sequel yeah exactly well we made two you did amazing well that was fun to watch That was amazing.

So you're feeling good. I think you should feel good, 10 plus years out. I do feel good. I think I feel better about it now than I did when it first came out. Good. Well, okay. Your therapy session is over, sir. Congratulations again.

And some cold play on the way out. Yeah. Francis, thanks for the time, man. This movie is fantastic. I'm so excited you came back for one more go-around. And, yeah, we could do this with all your films. Constantine next. Let's do it.

I would be happy to do Constantine. Amazing. Although there would be some effects in that, I'd probably cringe at too, but I'll make it all the more fun. A lot of love about that one. Excellent. Thanks for the time. All right. Thanks, man. If you want more of this watch-along for The Hunger Games Catching Fire, me and Francis Lawrence, well, Patreon.com slash happy, sad, confused is where it's at. You can watch and enjoy the entire film alongside Francis and me right now.

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