It’s been seven years since the main Hunger Games saga that focused on Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen concluded with Mockingjay — Part 2, but next year will mark our cinematic return to Panem. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Snakes is winding the clock back over six decades to explore the origins of Coriolanus Snow, with Billy the Kid’s Tom Blyth playing the younger version of the character Donald Sutherland played in the original Hunger Games movies. Blyth leads a massive cast that now includes Suicide Squad star Viola Davis in a big role.
Viola Davis will appear in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes as Head Gamemaker Volumnia Gaul. In other words, Gaul is the one who designs, plans and controls what happens in the arena during the 10th Hunger Games. In the official announcement of Davis coming aboard, Nathan Kahane, president, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, said that the actress’ “formidable and powerful” presence in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes “will add layers of complexity and menace to this story,” and director Francis Lawrence, who previously helmed Catching Fire and both parts of Mockingjay, had this to say about Davis’ character:
Dr. Gaul is as cruel as she is creative and as fearsome as she is formidable. Snow’s savvy as a political operator develops in no small part due to his experiences with her as the games’ most commanding figure.
More to come...
