‘Hunger Games’ Star Rachel Zegler Channeled Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline and Joan Baez for the Music of ‘Songbirds and Snakes’
variety.comEllise Shafer As evidenced in its title, music plays a big part in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” In the prequel to the original trilogy, “West Side Story” star Rachel Zegler portrays Lucy Gray Baird, the female tribute from District 12 for the 10th annual Hunger Games, who hails from a musical and nomadic people called the Covey.
The film features Zegler singing several songs, including franchise favorite “The Hanging Tree.” Much of the music is folk-inspired, and Zegler sang each track live during filming.
At the film’s London premiere — which came one day after SAG-AFTRA reached a tentative deal with the AMPTP to end the actors strike — Zegler told Variety who inspired her when it came to developing Lucy Gray’s voice. “We channeled a bunch of people: Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton and Joan Baez, to name a few.
That was really the voice that we were trying to find,” Zegler said. “But getting to sing live is my bread and butter, that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life and so it was really nice to get to bring that skill to my peers on set.” “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” centers on a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who becomes infatuated with Lucy Gray after serving as her mentor in the Hunger Games.
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