The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 Los Angeles Premiere

Hello, Tributes! We are only days away until the highly anticipated third film of The Hunger Games franchise, Mockingjay Part 1 is released in theaters worldwide. Last Monday, the worldwide premiere of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 took place in London and now a week later the Los Angeles premiere of the movie took place and I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to the movie premiere and while I didn’t get to be on the white carpet with the other fans, I was able to watch the entire thing being shown via live stream, courtesy of Yahoo, from inside the Nokia Theater.

Cast members attending the premiere were, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth. Elizabeth Banks, Jena Malone, Sam Claflin, Jeffrey Wright, Willow Shields. They were joined by newcomers Julianne Moore, Natalie Dormer, Evan Ross, Mahershala Ali, Wes Chatham, Elden Henson, Erica Bierman, Patina Miller.

Here are some of the best parts of the cast interviews.

What are you most excited about?

Willow Shields: I think just getting to see the fans and seeing how they react to the film because that’s very important to us, so I’m excited about that.

Wes Chatham: Yeah, I’m really excited about this whole process and being a part of this whole thing. The fans are so amazing and so supportive, it’s just been a wonderful experience to be a part of this thing. So I’m excited. When we were working in Europe, there’d be fans that who’d show up and they’d have pictures of me in high school, and I’m like “Where did you get these?”

Patina Miller: It is, it’s a huge, huge deal. I mean it’s my first one [movie premiere]. But to have your first one be a part of such an amazing franchise and it just couldn’t get any better than this. You know I’m happy to be a part of the [cast] family, so it’s great.

Fan Questions submitted through social media

Of all the crazy outfits you’ve worn thus far in The Hunger Games, what has been your favorite?

Jennifer Lawrence: My favorite in all The Hunger Games…maybe that gladiator dress in Catching Fire, the chariot dress.

If you could change the ending of Mockingjay, what would happen?

Wes Chatham: I think it’s so well done now, that I wouldn’t want to mess with it. No, but I really feel the amount of work and how much time that we spent on it I mean its genius the way it turned out and so I wouldn’t mess with it at all.

Now that the final movies are coming out, what will you miss most about being on set?

Jeffrey Wright: That’s a very easy question. It’s a great question. I’ll miss all my cast mates and the crew. I mean this is a very intense movie. It’s a movie about a society at war but we had a ball making this movie. You know we worked hard, very focused, very intense but we laughed most of the time. I mean Josh, Jennifer, Woody, Liam, everyone, we just have a ball, so I’ll miss those guys.

Josh Hutcherson: I wanted to bring home Finnick’s little trident in Catching Fire, because that thing like expanded into a trident from a stick (laughs). It was awesome I wanted it. I didn’t take it home, but I wanted to. I stole one prop. I stole a little locket that Peeta gives to Katniss in the pearl scene [in Catching Fire]. I stole the locket. 

Patina Miller: It would be my boots, my Commander Paylor boots. As soon as I put them on, I literally got right into character, it’s the swag you get when you put on the right boots. My boots were the most amazing thing.

Now that the final two movies are over, is it difficult to leave the cast and crew?

Francis Lawrence:  Yes, it is. I mean we still have some time together, I still have a couple more days on this tour, I still have to finish the next movie, so I’ll see them around. We do have one scene left to shoot, so we’re going to have a mini reunion, which’ll be nice. But I will say that when we do this next time, next year, it’ll be really sad. It was really sad on set when we finished, ‘cause we knew that the bulk of the work was done, and there were a lot of tears.

Having fun on set

Jeffrey Wright: So Beetee of course is in a wheelchair, you know, so Jennifer one day thought it would be fun to see if she could push me backwards in the wheelchair, except the wheelchair’s on a very delicate balance and I tip right over backwards, right? And I’m strapped in and I think she was trying to get me back for some past pranks or something like that. Yeah, there was a lot of ridiculousness around there.

Natalie Dormer: Yeah, we had so much fun. It was 9 months, we shot the two movies back to back, we became a really great family. We just bonded, you know when you’re working really long hours, through fire and mud and dirt and wind and water, you have a lot of jokes to keep morale up and have a lot of fun.

Sam Claflin: There was one prank that we all kind of felt a part of and I think it was Jen we duped into this. but basically there was a cupboard with a bunker door like deep down underground, where we were filming and it was pitch black, pitch black and we basically were taking turns taking 30 second inside this dark room and see if we could last 30 seconds without being scared and I think we hid Josh in this room when Jen went in. So Josh started making noises so she got very, very freaked out. That’s about the biggest prank that I remember.

Francis Lawrence: Woody would actually continue the jokes through a scene, especially if he was off camera. But everybody else was actually really good at playing through and just going for it, but Woody would still try and cause problems.

What was the hardest scene to film?

Sam Claflin: It think it’d be the first scene of the film, but also Finnick’s first scene in the film and also my first scene in filming this entire sort of episode of the franchise. It was Katniss and Finnick reuniting after the traumatic experience of the last movie. And it was a hugely emotional scene, but it was also kind of finding your feet and working out where everyone was after a year of seeing each other again. It was a strange day and it’s also trying to keep a straight face with Jennifer Lawrence is a near impossibility, so yeah very difficult

Mahershala Ali: There’s a scene where we go and visit one of the districts and there had been an incident there in one of the districts and it was a little heartbreaking. Just what they did with the set decks and the extras and how everyone was directed it just—it felt real. As an actor that’s as real as it can get and it was just a really moving scene.

Willow Shields: I think it was knowing that it was going to be over soon, and not being able to work together as much anymore because it’s like we’ll still see each other but we won’t be working together anymore. Worked together every day for and now we aren’t which is really difficult.

Evan Ross: Emotion-wise, I still think for me it would have to be when we’re in the trenches. It felt real, we were carrying our weapons, we were working with each other, so we were looking out for each other. In a small environment with water up to our necks and as much as it was a movie, it felt very real.

Elden Henson: In this one I would probably say the scene when we’re at the quarry. Because Katniss starts to sing and I think it takes everyone to a place where they’re sort of thinking about their own stuff. That was actually the first thing that I shot.