The prequel Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Snake and the Songbird focuses on the youth of Coriolanus Snow, the President of Panem, a real-life dictator who will attack Katniss Everdeen, a character played by Jennifer Lawrence in previous features. And it was Tom Blyth who replaced Donald Sutherland.
If young Tom Blyth was chosen, it was because director Francis Lawrence thought that “Tom might physically become Donald Sutherland as he grew older.” He said this during a press conference in Berlin to which the media was invited earlier this month.
Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MURRAY CLOSE/LIONSGATE
In The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird, young Snow is chosen as a mentor to District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler). If he wants to get a place at the University of Panem, which would open the doors to a brilliant career, he must do everything so that the young girl wins these 10th Hunger Games. The young man must also learn to use diplomacy and politics, especially when dealing with Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis), the inventor of these death games.
But playing a character as iconic as Coriolanus Snow came with some difficulties. And the pitfalls were numerous.
“The truth is, I definitely didn’t want Tom to try and act like Donald Sutherland. “I didn’t want him to move like him, sound like him, not at all,” the filmmaker stressed in an interview with YahooMovies UK.
“In The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird, we see a man who is not the same. He’s young, he doesn’t know who he is yet. He has not yet established his principles. He is not the man we know from previous parts. That’s why I wanted Tom to make Snow his own character.”
Fionnula Flanagan, Tom Blyth and Hunter Schafer in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MURRAY CLOSE/LIONSGATE
“So we talked to Tom about his character’s journey, what he wanted and what he was afraid of, and how he was going to get what he wanted. We examined the key moments that shaped him into the man he will become,” he added.
For his part, Tom Blyth worked and studied the smallest aspects of the young Coriolanus Snow in order not to fall into the trap of repeating the character.
“I think the most obvious trap to avoid is trying to replicate something someone else has already done perfectly. Even if you’re acting in a film that’s already been brought to the screen, you should definitely not try to copy a performance or even one aspect of a performance, such as the voice,” he told Digital Spy.
“Of course I wanted to pay tribute to what fans already know about Coriolanus, but it’s important to remember that the film takes place 64 years before the others. That’s why I believe that this simple fact gives me permission to take Snow as my own, to make him my own, while at the same time catching a glimpse of the President we’ve already seen.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird hits theaters in Quebec on November 17th.