Collider talks to Alexander Ludwig, Amandla Stenberg, and Isabelle Fuhrman

Collider talked to Alexander Ludwig, Amandla Stenberg, and Isabelle Fuhrman at the HG press conference.

"Question: Had all of you read the book, before you found out about the film?
ALEXANDER LUDWIG: There’s a book? No. Absolutely! We were all huge fans of the book.
Did you have favorite characters?
FUHRMAN: Yes, definitely. My favorites were Katniss and Rue. They’re just so relatable and lovable.
How was it to want to play a character that wants kill them?
FUHRMAN: Well, I always say that you have to love your characters, so it was about re-reading the book and learning to love one of the characters that’s really a bad character, and then, from there, discovering who she was and what made her so terrible and so mentally disturbed. And then, from there, I just did a lot of character work.
Alexander, what appealed to you about this role and what kind of training did you have to do?
LUDWIG: When I got offered the role of Cato, I jumped on the opportunity just ‘cause I’ve never really had a chance to play a bad guy, and that’s something I’ve always really, really wanted to do. I wanted to experience that really dark side of a person, and Cato is a really, really twisted individual. We worked unbelievably hard. Physically, I wanted Cato to have as big of a physical presence as he did a mental one, in the movie. There was lots of fight training that we had to go through. I worked with an ex-Navy SEAL to bulk up. I did tons of hand-to-hand combat.
FUHRMAN: We did a lot of work together, as far as training goes. He used a sword and I used a knife, so when we were doing the training, it was kind of the same except for the different sizes.
Isabelle, how good did you get at knife throwing?
FUHRMAN: I’m actually really good at it, which I didn’t expect at all. It was interesting because there are a lot more physics involved than I expected, originally. I don’t have a good arm, so I had to start with throwing a tennis ball, and then gradually move up to throwing an actual weighted knife at a target board. I felt like I did good. I know how to still do it.
LUDWIG: Isabelle actually did an exceptional job. She worked very, very hard.
FUHRMAN: And Alex did an amazing job with those swords. It was crazy!
Amandla, you have some of the most emotional scenes in the movie. What was that like for you?
AMANDLA STENBERG: That was a solemn day on set. But, Jennifer [Lawrence] is extremely funny, so every time we would finish a take, she’d be like, “That was cheery! I loved that!” And then, everyone would start laughing. She kept it light.
Were there pranks on set?
STENBERG: There were, indeed, pranks.
LUDWIG: Amandla is a prankster. I remember, one day, I was doing a fight scene on set and was just practicing with some of the stunt guys. In North Carolina, during the time we were filming, it was so hot that it was disgusting. It was like you had just walked out of a shower of sweat. It was gross. I’ve never been so disgusted. So, I had my shirt off when we were doing the fight training, and I had no clothes, so I had to run back to my trailer to go get my clothes. When I did, all my clothes were gone. I couldn’t find them anywhere. I just found this little note from Amandla and Jackie Emerson, who plays Fox Face. I was like, “Oh, my god! What have they done?” I had no clothes. I was in my boxers, trying to find all my clothes, and I found some of them in the fridge and some of them in the microwave. It was ridiculous! That was one of the many, many things Amandla did to ruin my life on set.
FUHRMAN: Yeah, and Alex has me text him directions. He wasn’t working for a weekend. It was a three-day weekend that they were just doing scenes with Jen [Lawrence] and Josh [Hutcherson]. He called me and was like, “My phone is about to die and I need directions from Nashville to Scottsdale, Arizona.” So, I typed them out and my thumbs were killing me. I sent them to him and he said, “I also need directions from Scottsdale, Arizona to Little Rock, Arkansas, and then to Boulder, Colorado.” I was like, “You’re not going to make it back in time.” He was like, “We’re going to fly back.” And I was like, “Okay, that seems implausible, but whatever.”
LUDWIG: She spent half an hour, just typing out directions on text. It was really sick and funny.
FUHRMAN: It was not funny for me.
LUDWIG: I got this huge essay of directions, that was like, “Turn left on a dirt road, and go all the way to Little Rock, Arkansas.” It was really funny! 

ISABELLE FUHRMAN: Yeah!"