The director of the last three Hunger Games films talks about the dark yet hopeful Mockingjay, Part 2.
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Francis Lawrence: Wow.
Its been an amazing three years.
You cant ask for any better.
People look at the Marvel movies that way, for example.
Quite honestly, I dont think I would do a Marvel movie.
Im not an expert in the way the Marvel movies work, but I dont think that I would.
That movie had a voice.
But (Lionsgate) met with me.
They wanted to know what my approach would be.
I laid it out: This is the way that I would make the movies.
And they went, OK. Great.
I was not coming in and doing what they wanted.
I was coming in and they luckily agreed with what I wanted to do.
It was the same (with the cast).
I laid it out for all the actors.
They were all cool with it.
So everybody was game.
So it was really great.
And I had a great collaborator with Nina (Jacobson), the producer.
We developed all three scripts together with the writers and Suzanne (Collins, author of the books).
Suzanne was another great collaborator.
But yeah, I never for a second felt kind of controlled by anybody.
You said this movie was going to be the war film.
And it really is a war film.
Did you have inspirations in in terms of older or classic war films?
We didnt do that for this.
But there was nothing specific that we looked at for these movies.
I love some of the architecture you found for the capital.
It looks so totalitarian and sort of oppressive, but also beautiful in a way.
Was it hard to find the right balance of what you wanted for that?
Luckily, that worked because theres forest.
Theres old rail stations and factories and lots of stuff we can use and sound stages.
For the tropical stuff we went to Hawaii.
So for this we knew, OK.
Were going back to Atlanta.
So we know were going to have to move to find those environments.
And our production designer found a few spots in Paris and a few spots in Berlin.
And there was sort of enough in both places that that kind of landed us there.
So we did that.
We found a place just about 10 kilometers east of Paris that we used for the oil sequence.
There were apartment complexes in the suburbs of Paris.
A certain place that we could use for the other outskirts of the capital and the subway tunnels.
So we just found lots of things we could use to sort of help grow out the world.
Its also great to try and find real places.
So that place where the oil spills out, thats a real place, an apartment building.
Its incredible large and imposing and kind of beautiful at the same time.
Ive just never seen anything like that, which is really exciting.
Shes definitely kept her head.
God, its hard to say.
She just sort of feels like the same Jen to me.
Id say thats where most of the change has taken place.
Its kind of instinctual and from the gut.
That was the same when I first started and when we last wrapped.
Oh, Jen always surprised me.
She would always surprise me.
I mean its such a good cast.
Everybody was always surprising.
Donald was always so great.
Jena Malone was fantastic and always kind of fun and exciting to watch.
Theres some people that are just exciting to watch.
It was just filled with great actors.
You are also the custodian of the last film were going to see with Philip Seymour Hoffman in it.
I think the movie works in terms of his character.
Its not in its most ideal form in terms of dealing with his character.
But, you know, our hands are a bit tied in that situation.
Theres the scene with the letter that Haymitch brings at the end.
That was supposed to be Phil with Katniss.
He was supposed to really be at the execution and at the wedding.
We had to take old footage and put him in there.
Again, its real footage.
Were not manipulating it, but were just using it somewhere else.
Its hard to say.
Whats next for you, a long break or do you have some other things lined up?
Ideally not a long break.
Im developing a few things.
Im working on an adaptation that Nina and I are working on,The Odysseyfor Lionsgate.
Were trying to crack that.
Theres a few things Im developing that could happen with Jen, which are exciting.
You know, just a few things.
But I dont really know whats going to land next yet.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2is in theaters this Friday (November 20).
