Elle Fanning has Elizabeth Banks’ stamp of approval for playing a young Effie Trinket in the upcoming “Hunger Games” prequel, “Sunrise on the Reaping.”
“I was so excited,” Banks said Monday night at the premiere of her new Peacock series, “The Miniature Wife,” when I asked what she thought about seeing Fanning in the “Sunrise on the Reaping” trailer. “I think she’s perfect casting. I’ve always said it. The fans loved it and wanted it, so I was really happy about it.”
Fanning previously told The Hollywood Reporter that Banks congratulated her for being cast with a bouquet of flowers and a message with the movie’s iconic phrase, “May the odds be in your favor,” and signed, “All love, Elizabeth Banks.”
In the Francis Lawrence-directed prequel, Effie, who was portrayed by Banks in the original four “Hunger Games” films, is a stylist to District 12 Tribute Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada) in the lead-up to the 50th Hunger Games.
An adaptation of the bestselling novel by Suzanne Collins, the film’s cast also includes Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, Glenn Close as Drusilla Sickle and Billy Porter as her estranged husband, Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove Baird, Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Maya Hawke as Wiress, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee, Lili Taylor as Mags, Ben Wang as Wyatt and Ralph Fiennes as President Snow. Molly McCann will also appear as Louella, while Iona Bell will portray her Capitol-assigned lookalike, Lou Lou.
Original franchise stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are also expected to make an appearance in the movie.
In “The Miniature Wife,” Banks plays a woman who is accidentally shrunk to six inches by her scientist husband, played by Matthew Macfadyen. “They pitched it to me as ‘War of the Roses,’ but she’s six inches tall. I was like that is very interesting,” Banks said. “I loved the theme of minimizing a partner’s feelings and what they want and their needs and all those things. And I thought this was a great opportunity to use an absurdist lens to really analyze that kind of dynamic in a relationship.”
She admitted that she was nervous about how realistic she would look while tiny. “I was relieved that the CGI looked as good as it did,” Banks said. “I was so worried that I wasn’t going to look like I was really there. You just can’t imagine it, honestly, no matter how many times they tell you it’s going to be fine.”
Her co-stars used a six-inch doll as a stand-in for her character. “I was 3D-printed from like me basically,” Bank said. “I like to say this is probably the least mentally prepared I was for a job because I did not understand how much of it I would be solo, and how vulnerable that feels to sort of have to be imagining everything on your own. It’s really kind of scary.”
All 10 episodes of “The Miniature Wife” will premiere on Peacock on April 9.
variety.com
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