Donald Sutherland and Stanley Tucci Talk ‘Hunger Games’ With Total Film
YAY! We now have new quotes from Donald Sutherland (President Snow) and Stanley Tucci (Caesar Flickerman) about The Hunger Games movie and their characters, in the March Total Film Magazine.
Total Film: How did you first hear about The Hunger Games?
Donald Sutherland: I wasn’t actually offered a role. The script was given to me, and I wrote an extensive note to my representative, because I thought it was a beautiful script, and it had the possibility to be the most influential film made in this country for many years.
TF: So Gary Ross didn’t have to twist your arm to take part?
DS: I wanted to do it but Snow didn’t have much to do, in the first script, so Gary wrote two more scenes, in the Rose Garden. And it made it clear Snow was able to see and recognise Katniss’ genius. In the middle of her conflict, she recognises who her enemy is: me. And the minute I see her, I know who she is, and that she will destroy me.
TF: Did anyone inspire your performance?
DS: Snow’s first name is Coriolanus. I researched why Suzanne Collins called him that, but the only person I thought of was [Midnight Cowboy director] John Schlesinger, because he loved roses. Roses are really Snow’s only passion – while everybody else is starving…
Total Film: How aware were you of the book, before Gary Ross got in touch?
Stanley Tucci: I was unaware. I mentioned it to my fiancée - she’s a literary agent. I said, “Gary Ross wants me to do The Hunger Games…” And she said, “Do it! Oh my God, those books are phenomenal.” So I read the book, read the script, and loved them both.
TF: Did Caesar’s costume and make-up change how you’d envisaged the part?
ST: Absolutely. We had a wig made, then I asked them to make me incredibly fake white teeth. And he should look like he’s had lots of plastic surgery so we pulled my face up with tape and he’s very tanned and has eye make-up on – it’s really, like, horrifying. Once you do all that, honestly,I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t start to behave differently.
TF: Did you ad-lib in your interview scenes with Josh Hutcherson?
ST: We ad-libbed a lot. Gary handed me new stuff when I went in and we used it as a template. Then I could go wherever I wanted. It was incredibly freeing and it was really, really, really fun.
Make sure to check out the March issue of Total Film!!
“And it made it clear Snow was able to see and recognise Katniss’ genius. In the middle of her conflict, she recognises who her enemy is: me.”
However, Katniss doesn’t see Snow as an personal enemy until Catching Fire! Her enemies are the Tributes and later the Capital as a whole in The Hunger Games. She is too busy trying to get through the games to peg him as her enemy.
@Eve I see where you are coming from but the message in the book for me was kind of implyed. There was this one point in the book after Katniss get the medicine for Peeta and she says that Thresh would have been their friend In District 12. Then Peeta says for them to hope that they cato and thresh destroy eachother at the same time or have atleast Cato kill him before they have to. Then Katniss thinks that she doesn’t want anyone else to die. And then we get to the part with the berries where Katniss knows they have to have a victor or else the point of the games is ruined. With those two moments together maybe it was just me but with those 2 moments together it seemed like Katniss figured out who she was really fighting against. Even though she only figured it out in the Capitol when Haymitch was speaking to her about it she had to know she was really fighting against Snow. And I mean even without all that even if she didn’t know she would have had to have figured it out when Haymitch was talking to her. Just my opinion though.