Jennifer Lawrence has been called “the most talented young actress in America” by the Rolling Stone magazine and named “one of the 100 most influential people in the world” by Time, which is quite something considering she is only 24.

She has already picked up a host of awards, including a Best Actress Oscar two years ago for her role in Silver Linings Playbook. However, what has catapulted her into the international limelight is playing Katniss Everdeen, the heroine in The Hunger Games films, based on the futuristic trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins.

The author has given Katniss one of the most telling lines as she confronts an all-powerful adversary: “Fire is catching. If we burn, you burn with us.”

The tale is of good versus evil. The latter is represented by the wealthy and powerful Capitol headed by a dictator, President Coriolanus Snow. In a land known as “Panem”, there are 13 “districts” whose people have been crushed by war and are now oppressed by the victorious Snow.

Jennifer Lawrence at the Los Angeles premiere of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part I, that releases this Friday

Each year, young people are “reaped” from the defeated districts and made to fight each other unto death. From their midst emerges brave Katniss, initially as a reluctant leader, to lead the districts in rebellion against the might of the Capitol. The symbol of defiance that Katniss assumes is that of the Mockingjay. She wears a tight (and sexy) black body suit and is armed with a quiver full of explosive arrows.

The first film in what has become a very profitable franchise, The Hunger Games, came out in March 2012. The second, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, came out in November last year. The third film in the trilogy, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, has been split into two parts. The first part is releasing worldwide now, with Part II, which has been shot and is currently in post-production, to follow this time next year.

A FRESHNESS ABOUT JENNIFER

Before I can talk to Jennifer, I am required to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I, which makes sense, anyway. Also, I have to sign an undertaking that no review will appear until an embargo expires. There are also to be no questions of a personal nature.

There is a freshness about Jennifer, which is appealing, both on screen and in real life. She comes across in the film as vulnerable, so much so that the president of District 13, Alma Coin, has real doubts as to whether Katniss is up to the job of leading the rebellion. But by and by, Katniss does rise to the challenge. Just as when the story comes to the boil, the film cuts — and you will have to wait a whole year before the final part.

I ask Jennifer about the manner in which she portrays Katniss, the central character in the film, indeed the whole series, as someone who is initially diffident, compared certainly with her ally, President Coin. The latter is what I imagine President Hillary Clinton might turn to be like, I add as a joke, but the comment is taken seriously.

“Both of our characters do actually have a lot in common,” replies Jennifer, who looks elegant in a white trouser suit. “Both very strong and very powerful, so that we respect each other but also that’s something we fear in one another.”

“Drawing on your own personal experiences is tricky for me — it is not me — it is a very different person who handles emotions in a very different way.” Had she been in Katniss’s situation, “I would have been crying every single day, ‘Where’s my Mom?’”

Those who have read the novels will understand the full significance of that remark.

Julianne Moore, who plays President Coin, cuts in: “Suzanne Collins has written such wonderful, fully developed female characters and that is unusual — these characters could have all been male but Suzanne chose to make them female. So I feel reading the books, looking at the movies, the movies more generally represent the life that I see than the one that is generally depicted in films so I am very grateful for that.”

The books have done so well — 65 million copies sold in the US alone and sale of foreign rights to 56 territories in 51 languages — because they speak to young people, Julianne adds. “This series of books and movies is about a young woman who moves from adolescence into adulthood and changes the world which I think is every kid’s hope and fantasy.”

KATNISS VS JENNIFER

Back to Jennifer who explains Katniss’s state of mind at the start of the film: “Katniss has been completely stripped down when we find her at the beginning of this movie — she has suffered from post-traumatic stress from the first games. She wakes up in a district she did not even know existed — she has lost her home, she is completely bare and has to rebuild herself.... It is natural — she is in a darker place. She is completely stripped away from everything she knows and has to rebuild.”

She goes on, talking of her character’s evolution: “Continuing Katniss’s journey, it is not about the games any more, we are moving into real war between District 13 and the Capitol. So things are naturally getting darker storywise, visually because we are underground a lot in District 13 but we are following her journey.”

She demurs when asked whether there is anything of Katniss in her own personality: “Drawing on your own personal experiences is tricky for me — it is not me — it is a very different person who handles emotions in a very different way.”Had she been in Katniss’s situation, “I would have been crying every single day, ‘Where’s my Mom?’”

Bu then she recalls she had to grow up fast when she was nominated for an Oscar in 2012 and became an object of intense interest. “I remember reading the first books and when I read them I was going through my first award season for Winter’s Bone (2010). I had never experienced anything like that — just being put in dresses (for the Oscar ceremony) that are uncomfortable and looking not like myself and everybody listening to you. (I felt like saying) ‘Don’t listen to me, I’m 20!’”

“I felt there were a few parallels — of having people look at you, listen to you at a very young age when you don’t really feel ready,” she comments.

an incredible hero

Jennifer did ponder briefly on the consequences of taking on the role of Katniss because she sensed her life would not be the same again.

“It is a huge honour,” she begins.

“Before I said ‘yes’ to these movies we had a feeling because the books were so popular and so huge that this character was going to be with me for the rest of my life,” she says.

“We could have never guessed that it would surpass every single expectation,” she reflects. “That made me nervous for a few days — I am an actor, I don’t want to be remembered just as one character. That is a scary idea but I am so proud of these movies — I love this message, I love this character, I love everything about her that I am actually honoured to carry this character with me for the rest of my life and have people remember me as this incredible, courageous hero.”

She jokes about the character of Katniss: “I hope people mistake it for me.”

There is a thoughtful answer from the director Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer) when I ask about whether audiences will draw comparisons with other evil empires in the world today.

“It’s interesting you bring that up because the story definitely mirrors things happening in the world now — unfortunately it mirrors things that have been happening in the world for thousands of years,” he responds. “I think we start dealing with media, propaganda and battles over the air waves.”

Most probably he had in mind terrorists putting online videos of western captives being beheaded as part of the propaganda war. “I think that is more of a modern idea — something we see all the time,” the director continues. “But you will find as the story progresses that the stories are not so black and white. And it is much more about the idea that war is always messy, it is much more shades of grey, it is never very clean, (and) there is always consequence.”

There are execution scenes at the start of Mockingjay Part I, again reminiscent of the hooded terrorists of the Islamic state.

Asked whether President Snow has any redeeming qualities, Donald Sutherland, who turns in a masterly performance as the principal villain, says in mock protest: “I love him. No, no, no, I do, seriously, he’s a politician, a bureaucrat. He’s doing a job that he believes he has to do. He is not killing people for pleasure — it is for necessity. You know (former US President) Lyndon Johnson killed 30,000 of our people for what he presumed was necessity.”

Sutherland also offers an intriguing insight into the nature of the relationship between villain and heroine: “Katniss Everdeen for Coriolanus Snow would be the ideal person to take over from him. She is perfect in everything that she does in his mind. It’s just that she’s on the other side — so I am so sorry he has to destroy her. But that being so, he would like to postpone that a little bit. But it is inevitable that everything she does is right and it delights him. It charms him. And he adores her.”

Who can play Katniss Everdeen in a Bollywood remake of The Hunger Games? Tell t2@abp.in