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‘Hunger Games’ Prequel Reveals Villainous Leader’s Origin Story 

Actors Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Josh Andres Rivera appear during a promotional event for the movie "Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", in Times Square in New York City, US, November 1, 2023. (Reuters)
Actors Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Josh Andres Rivera appear during a promotional event for the movie "Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", in Times Square in New York City, US, November 1, 2023. (Reuters)
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‘Hunger Games’ Prequel Reveals Villainous Leader’s Origin Story 

Actors Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Josh Andres Rivera appear during a promotional event for the movie "Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", in Times Square in New York City, US, November 1, 2023. (Reuters)
Actors Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Josh Andres Rivera appear during a promotional event for the movie "Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", in Times Square in New York City, US, November 1, 2023. (Reuters)

It wasn't easy for director Francis Lawrence to transform "Hunger Games" franchise villain Coriolanus Snow into a compelling protagonist for a prequel film taking place 64 years before the hit films starring Jennifer Lawrence.

"We had to figure out a way to get an audience emotionally invested in him, to be behind him, to be rooting for him, to empathize with him," Lawrence told Reuters.

"The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" arrives in theaters on Nov. 17 and delves into the origin stories of some characters from the four previous films. In particular, it explores President Snow's journey to overseeing the brutal games in which young people must fight to the death in an arena for an event called "The Hunger Games."

Like the other films, the Lionsgate prequel is based on a novel by Suzanne Collins, released in 2020.

"Once we felt like we had the audience behind him, we still had to seed in layers of his ambition and layers of his greed and layers of the darkness and layers of his sort of hunger for power so that when he does turn, it feels honest, it feels truthful and believable," Lawrence added.

The older version of Snow from the original films was portrayed by Canadian actor Donald Sutherland and the younger version in the prequel is played by English actor Tom Blyth.

The cast also includes noteworthy actors Viola Davis as Dr. Volumnia, Hunter Schafer as Tigris Snow and Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom.

Snow will do anything to succeed, including agreeing to mentor one of the contestants in The Hunger Games, songstress Lucy Gray Baird, played by Rachel Zegler.

What starts as coaching Baird in hopes of bolstering his academic achievements transforms into a sequence of events that take Snow down a menacing path of betrayal.

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Entertainment

Timothee Chalamet Channels Young Bob Dylan in 'A Complete Unknown'

FILE PHOTO: Timothee Chalamet attends a premiere of the film "A Complete Unknown" at Dolby theater in Los Angeles, California, US December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Timothee Chalamet attends a premiere of the film "A Complete Unknown" at Dolby theater in Los Angeles, California, US December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
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Timothee Chalamet Channels Young Bob Dylan in 'A Complete Unknown'

FILE PHOTO: Timothee Chalamet attends a premiere of the film "A Complete Unknown" at Dolby theater in Los Angeles, California, US December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Timothee Chalamet attends a premiere of the film "A Complete Unknown" at Dolby theater in Los Angeles, California, US December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

Timothee Chalamet likened his journey to playing music legend Bob Dylan to an athletic feat. It turned into a marathon that stretched longer than the actor had expected.
Chalamet signed up to play Dylan in 2019. Then came a global pandemic and labor strikes in Hollywood, forcing two extended delays to filming.
"A Complete Unknown," the movie about Dylan's quick rise to stardom in the early 1960s, will finally be released in theaters on Wednesday, Christmas Day, by Walt Disney's Searchlight Pictures.
The disruptions gave the "Dune" actor more time to work out how to translate the towering figure to the big screen. Chalamet learned to play guitar and harmonica and worked with a vocal coach to evolve from his smooth "Wonka" singing to Dylan's distinctive, nasal voice, Reuters reported.
"It was the most I've ever taken on," Chalamet said in an interview, comparing the preparation to "the climbing of a steep hill."
"A Complete Unknown" chronicles Dylan's arrival in New York in 1961 at age 19, his rapid ascent in folk music circles with songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind," and his divisive turn to electric rock music in 1965. The movie's title is taken from a line in the Dylan hit "Like a Rolling Stone."
Chalamet said he immersed himself in whatever video he could find of Dylan in the early '60s, a time of political and social upheaval in the United States.
"There's a finite amount of material available, especially in this period," Chalamet said. "At some point you can turn every page over. Not to say that I have, but if I haven't I've come damn close to it."
In the summer of 2023, Chalamet said, "I felt like I hit a runner's high" in the preparation.
"I felt like my muscles were strong and I was well prepared, and that every day was sort of just chipping away slowly at this bigger thing," he said.
Just as Chalamet was ready, Hollywood actors went on strike, and he worried that funding or casting might fall apart. The final go-ahead to start filming came in March 2024.
DYLAN WEIGHS IN
The real-life Dylan provided input on the script to director James Mangold but never met or spoke with Chalamet, though he recently described the star as "a brilliant actor."
"I'm sure he's going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me," Dylan wrote on social media platform X.
Chalamet's performance has earned praise from critics and predictions that he could garner his second Oscar nomination. He and co-star Edward Norton were nominated for Golden Globes.
Other co-stars include Elle Fanning, who plays girlfriend Suze Rotolo who appeared on the cover of the album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" but goes by the name Sylvie Russo in the film.
Monica Barbaro portrays singer Joan Baez, who had already landed on the cover of Time magazine when her career intersected with Dylan's. At the time, Baez was trying to figure out how to use her platform as an activist.
"Bob came in and was kind of a mess of a boy, but also an absolute poet and brilliant lyricist, and was putting words to all of these things that she felt," Barbaro said. "On top of his charisma, I think, she just was sort of magnetized to him."
Norton plays Pete Seeger, a banjo player and prominent singer of protest music who mentored Dylan.
"I think a lot of people have lost sight of who these people actually were and what they did and what they sounded like," Norton said. "If we can get some people tuning in again, that's probably worth the whole enterprise."
Chalamet agreed.
Dylan is "one of these names that is iconic to my generation," the 28-year-old said. "You know the name, but because he's such an elusive figure and a reclusive figure ... a lot of people my age don't know the music."
"This felt like an opportunity to be a bridge in some way and bring life to this amazing period," he added.