Los Angeles, U.S.A. — After more than 2.4 million votes were cast internationally, ‘Hunger Games’ humble yet fierce Jennifer Lawrence took the number one position on AskMen’s “Top 99 Most Desirable Women” list. In the poll, which surveyed AskMen readers, Lawrence shot up ahead of her Hollywood peers, including Kristen Stewart (No. 7), Jessica Biel (No. 24), Charlize Theron (No.97) and reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who dropped from No. 8 on last year’s list to No. 98 this year.

The 12th edition of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women poll, calls on AskMen readers to elect women who most closely match their ideals. These men were tasked with voting on more than just sex appeal, taking into account character, intelligence, talent, sense of humor, professional success, achievements in 2012 and potential for 2013.

Lawrence’s victory follows an incredible 2012 for the 22-year-old starlet, whose breakout performances in ‘Hunger Games’ and ‘Silver Lining Playbook’ turned the heads of men worldwide and pinned her as the next big thing. Lawrence is followed by ‘TED’ actress Mila Kunis, who has consistently appeared on AskMen’s Top 99 since 2008 a Sports Illustrated turned Vogue model Kate Upton stayed high up on the list, landing at No. 3, dropping only one spot from the 11th edition of the list.

With more than 40% of the women on the list appearing for the first time, it’s fair to say there is a new breed of strong and independent women taking over. Take Lawrence’s No. 1 ranking after her fearless roles, or Claire Danes, who earned an Emmy this year for her standout performance on Homeland, at No. 20. Anne Hathaway shaved her head for her dramatic role in ‘Les Miserables’ and came in at No. 47. Other powerful women on the list include Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo, at No. 59, First Lady Michelle Obama at No. 33 and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Russian activist-punk group Pussy Riotat No. 85.

James Bassil , Editor-In-Chief of AskMen, commented, “The top-rated women on AskMen’s 12th edition of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women list speaks to men’s growing comfort with strong and independent partners. While undeniably successful candidates like Marissa Mayer have rocketed up the list, the more ambiguous “career” women — like Kim Kardashian – have plummeted on it.”

The “Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2013″ features a new generation of leading women:

• “Girls” actresses Jemima Kirke (No. 51) and Allison Williams (No. 42), “Mad Men” actress Jessica Pare at No. 9, Beyonce’s sister, singer Solange Knowles, at No. 50, Australian Youth Olympian Michelle Jenneke at No. 10 and newlywed U.S. soccer team goalie Hope Solo at No. 30.
• Music icons have historically pushed boundaries on what’s considered desirable, and this year is no different, with American Idol judge Nicki Minaj dropping off the list and making way for newbies Azealia Banks (No. 49) and “Call Me Maybe” singer Carly Rae Jepsen at No. 75.

For a third year in a row, TV actresses dominated the list, with 24 TV stars claiming spots. “Modern Family’s” Sofia Vergara topped last year’s list, and she continued to hold strong at No. 12 this year. Has dating bad boy Kanye West hurt Kim Kardashian ’s image? The reality tv star dropped to No. 98 on this year’s list. Perhaps not, as “bad girl” Kristen Stewart ’s public infidelity had no impact on her desirability, which resulted in a climb from No. 27 last year to No. 7 this year. Likewise, Scarlett Johansson fell from No. 7 to No. 45. Will her upcoming sultry performance in ‘A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ on Broadway restore her sex appeal?

Votes for the 12th annual list also prove that men are loving women over 40, including Vergara (No. 12), Sarah Silverman (No. 23), Lucy Liu; (No. 69) and Rachel Weisz (No 72). First Lady, Michelle Obama , at age 48, is the oldest woman featured on this list, at No. 33.

For exclusive videos, photos and comments from this year’s honorees, visit www.askmen.com. Up-to-date coverage of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women can also be found on AskMen’s Facebook and Twitter.

Here is what some of the Top 99 women had to say
“Thank you Ask Men for choosing me this year! It’s such an honor and I hope I can continue being park of the AskMen family!” – Jessica Gomes, No. 8

“I love AskMen.com. Thank you for including me amongst these incredible women. Honored!” – Candice Swanepoel, No. 11

“I am hugely flattered to have been voted on to the AskMen Top 99 Most Desirable Women list. Please pass on a sincere thank you to all the readers who voted for me.”- Emilia Clarke, No. 15

“Being on the Top 99 list of askmen.com is extremely flattering! Thank you xx” - Chanel Iman, No.26

“Thank you Askmen.com! It is so amazing to be on your Most Desirable list!”- Olivia Culpo, No.36

“I am honored. I will adore this moment because I fear this title will drop next year because it’s hard to look amazing in bobsled with snot running down your nose” – Lolo Jones, No.41

Image Courtesy : Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

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Gil Bellows, an Emmy-winning producer as well as a veteran actor, joined the cast of upcoming ‘House at the End of the Street’ as local law enforcement officer Bill Weaver, whose past relationship with the character of Ryan colors his budding romance with Sarah. “Gil has that cop masculinity, with a bit of darkness underneath,” says Elisabeth Shue. “That kind of mystery is really interesting.”

Weaver and Sarah meet when she tries to get information about Ryan’s past. They have an immediate spark. “Bill is the friendly face of law enforcement in town,” says Bellows. “Elisabeth Shue is a bundle of positivity and in this world if you’re a very positive person people seem to think that you must be crazy. I happen to think it’s just great and really good for everybody else’s general morale. I’ve always liked her from a distance and now I’ve had a chance to work with her up close and personal and she’s definitely a super cool lady.”

The police officer has protective feelings toward Ryan that have their roots deep in the past. “There’s a lot of history that goes back to well before Sarah and Elissa come to town and my character is a part of that,” he says. “They are struggling to understand the world that they’ve just stepped into. Part of what I do is give them some context because most of the townspeople are extremely judgmental about Ryan. I offer a slightly different perspective.

“A lot of bad things happened a long time ago,” says Bellows. “Weaver believes that the boy isn’t responsible. He sees both sides of who Ryan is. You get to see both sides of all the characters, really. We’re playing within a genre where people make snap judgments about whether this is a good character or this is a bad character. I think this film does a really good job of playing against that.”

The filmmakers are particularly proud to have discovered Eva Link, a gifted young actress from Ottawa, and given her a small but crucial role in her first film. “When you go into smaller cities, you never quite know how deep the talent pool is going to be,” says producer Aaron Ryder. “We were shocked to see how talented this young girl is. I don’t think she had done much more than a high school play, but she’s a real talent. She may take Hollywood by storm.”

In the end, the producer says, the entire cast’s commitment was critical to the success of the film. “Everybody was working towards the same endgame,” says Ryder. “We had a relatively short period to shoot and it was a tricky three-point balance. They had to be really dedicated to making the days, to finding the best parts of the characters, and making a fun movie. I think that we achieved that and in large part it’s because of these actors and the way they meshed together and took the job really seriously.”

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To play Elissa’s errant mother, Sarah, in the new movie ‘House at the End of the Street’ the filmmakers brought in the Academy Award-nominated actress, Elisabeth Shue. “Elisabeth is a great actress and a really special person as well,” says Mark Tonderai. “She’s just quality. It was also great getting to work with someone I had a crush on as a kid.”

The director says that Jennifer Lawrence and Shue’s real life experiences added a unique dimension to their characters’ mother-daughter relationship. “Elisabeth became a huge star at a very young age,” he says. “She was about 19 when she made ‘The Karate Kid’ and it had a massive impact. Jennifer was about the same age when she made ‘Winter’s Bone’. When we were shooting, she was just starting to experience fame. I felt we’d be able to get that kind of frisson between mother and daughter.”

‘House at the End of the Street’ was a reunion for Shue and producer Aaron Ryder, who had previously worked together on the 2008 off-beat comedy, ‘Hamlet 2’. “Elisabeth is fantastic,” says Ryder. “She’s a real pro. She’s one of those actresses who make your movie better just by being in it. She’s sexy and talented, and you like her the minute she comes on the screen. Every time I see her in front of the camera, I think, that’s a movie star. She just has that glow about her.”

Sarah and Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) have reversed mother and daughter roles at the beginning of the film and Sarah is struggling to regain authority. “Sarah is newly divorced with a 17-year-old daughter,” explains Shue. “She used to be a rock ‘n’ roll mom, following her husband from show to show, but now she and her daughter have moved to a small town looking for a fresh start. Sarah has not been a hands-on mother. She’s less mature in many ways than her daughter, who pretty much takes care of her, but the challenges she faces force her to become a mother in the end.

“It’s an unusual dynamic and one of the reasons I really liked the script,” adds the actress. “Jen was perfect in the role because as a person she has such a strong presence that it was easy for me to feel a little immature around her.”

The script’s unexpected twists and turns fill the movie with a pervasive sense of dread and ratchet up the suspense, according to Shue. “I can usually see them coming, but I was surprised while reading it. What’s great is that they are not just there for shock value. They are grounded in the story, which makes it all the more haunting and unnerving. The movie is tense and scary from the moment it begins. The girl who stabbed her parents is believed to be living in the woods and from the beginning of the film, there’s this feeling that there is somebody watching. That element pervades the atmosphere and elevates the tension.”

The film is both smart and scary, says Shue, a rare combination in her experience. “I think the audience will be scared from the moment they sit down in their seats all the way through to the end of the film. They’ll be engaged by the psychologically complexities and then terrified because there are some truly scary moments that will have them jumping out of their seats.”

Shue says that at this point in her career, the people she will be working with are usually the deciding factor in accepting a role that will take her away from her family for weeks or months. “Mark is such an extraordinary director. He’s so warm and, as a former actor, he understands what we’re going through and makes sure everybody is very comfortable on the set. He has injected a lot of style into the film, but it’s never overwhelming. The camera is not the most important character, but it does work in a really creepy way at times.”

After surviving early success herself, the actress has a great appreciation for her young co-stars’ talent and tenacity. “I just have so much respect for both Jen and Max Thieriot—for the depth of their talent, as well as their lack of ego. I had seen ‘Winter’s Bone’, so I knew what an extraordinary actress Jen was. There’s a real stillness to her performance that is electrifying, especially in the moments of fear and panic. She’s like a colt, feeling her legs for the first time, but she also has a maturity that is surprising for somebody her age. She’s very comfortable in her own skin.”

Shue’s dedication and professionalism were an inspiration to Lawrence. “Working with Elisabeth was unbelievable,” she says. “She asks real questions that get you thinking. It was a very intense shoot and sometimes I was on autopilot, but she would stop and ask why we would do things. She always made good, thoughtful points.”

As Ryan, Elissa’s love interest in the film, Max Thieriot reminded Lawrence of an acting legend and one of her favorite stars. “He’s like Paul Newman reincarnated,” she says. “And it takes a lot for me to say that—I love Paul Newman. He is good-looking and immensely talented, but he’s also like a cowboy. He doesn’t seem to care. He sits in his trailer and listens to country music and chews tobacco. It’s sexy.”

Image Courtesy of  Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

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In an intense and complex role, actor Max Thieriot managed to keep things relaxed on the set of ‘House at the End of the Street’ while delivering a riveting and nuanced performance, says Mark Tonderai. “Max was very loose and very, very funny,” says the director. “His performance has such beautiful shadings to it. Watching it a second time, knowing what you know about the story, illuminates all kinds of subtleties that may have gone unnoticed during a first viewing. It has been said that filmmaking is 90 percent casting and it’s absolutely true. This is an incredibly difficult part and I can’t imagine anyone who could have done it better.”

Thieriot says the script set his mind racing on the first read. “I was shocked and surprised by the originality of the story. The twists and madness of it really caught my imagination. I never saw the ending coming, and I can usually predict how a script will end.”

Playing Ryan was an opportunity to create a unique character, unlike any Thieriot had played before. “He is really intense,” the actor says. “He has a lot of stuff going on and it is really exciting to play someone out of the ordinary. Mark worked with me on a deeper level than I think most directors do and that definitely helped.

“Clearly, Ryan had a traumatic and tormented childhood that transformed him into someone outside the norm,” Thieriot continues. “He lives as a hermit because he knows he is misunderstood and looked down upon. When Elissa comes into his life, she sees him in a different light. That changes something in him. It exposes a part of him that even he didn’t know was there.”

Ryan is hiding some devastating secrets about his past, but the director and the actor agreed that he is also living his life without any telltale shadows of guilt. “He isn’t consciously concealing anything,” says Thieriot. “It all seems normal to him and that’s how I played it moment to moment.”

Tonderai’s bible was a real help in establishing the character, he says. “You don’t often get to work with a director who goes that extra mile. Mark is so committed to the work. You can’t help but be drawn to his passion and enthusiasm.”

Although he was not familiar with Jennifer Lawrence’s work before the film, Thieriot says it was clear from day one that she had what it takes to become a star. “When we began this film, she hadn’t had any of the success she had now,” he notes. “She had done some television and a couple of independent films. ‘The Hunger Games’ was still just a book. But Jennifer’s acting talent just seems to come naturally to her.”

The role was challenging for the young actor, both physically and emotionally. Like Lawrence, he found the movie’s intensely physical fight sequences demanding. “It’s hard to get to where you need to be in those moments,” he says. “Your emotions have to be ridiculously high. I want it to be as real as possible, so I tell people, just hit me, just kick me; it’s not going to hurt. It needs to look real. Convincing people that it’s okay to go a little bit further can be one of the most difficult parts.”

That level of commitment impressed Thieriot’s cast mates. “Max is a wonderful actor,” Lawrence says. “He can just turn it on and off. It was eerie to watch the light in his eyes change the instant Mark called action. All of a sudden he was a different person. It never felt like acting with Max.”

Image Courtesy of  Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

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Before shooting commenced of the new horror movie ‘House at the End of the Street’, Mark Tonderai developed what he calls the “bible” for this film, an almost 100-page document that outlines his ideas on character, tone, lighting, themes and more. He distributed the meticulously detailed and lavishly illustrated tome to cast and crew to ensure they were all on the same page during the brief shoot. “It’s crucial when you start a film that you’re all making the same movie in terms of theme, concept and character,” says the director, who created a similar guide for his first film. “Every scene is important. And every scene’s a challenge. We were on a tight schedule and I had to make sure to seize my days.”

Producer Aaron Ryder was initially skeptical, but came to understand how essential the bible is to Tonderai’s filmmaking process, and to creating the hair-trigger tension at the heart of the story. “He put a lot into it, a lot of ideas and themes from the movie, as well as how it was going to shoot it, how to light it and the texture of it. A lot of directors don’t think that far ahead.”

While acknowledging the collaborative nature of moviemaking, Tonderai made sure that everyone from actors to department heads to producers to crewmembers had an opportunity to share his vision. “Everyone comes to the material with their own point of view, which is a positive,” he says. “But if the crew doesn’t know what’s in my head or the costume department isn’t aware of what the lighting is going to be, or the gaffer doesn’t know what sort of visual richness I want, then I’m at a disadvantage. With this as a guide, choices were not made based on opinions. They were made based on character and theme and story. There was a reason for everything.”

The extra preparation also helped the shoot go more smoothly. “Every time there was a question, I would say, ‘go to the bible; you will find it all in there.’ It was our guide, our arbitrator, our armor. It informed everybody about the film I wanted to make. I didn’t have to speak. I just showed them my images.”

Line producer Robert Menzies had never seen a director share so much of his advance preparation with the crew. “The bible served the production incredibly well. It was a very intense read. It was very focused and touched on just about every single aspect, allowing the crew to really get inside the head of our director. They understood from that document what his vision was for wardrobe, for art department, for camera—the look of the whole piece. And I think it set the tone for the whole production, so it was a phenomenal piece of work.”

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The story of ‘House at the End of the Street’, in cinemas on September 21, is set in suburban Pennsylvania, but the filmmakers took their production to Ottawa, Ontario, for the 28-day shoot. “I never imagined we’d be shooting this film in Ottawa,” says producer Aaron Ryder. “I’ve shot films in Toronto and Vancouver, but I’d never been to Ottawa. I didn’t quite know what to expect. I didn’t even know if there was going to be a crew base there. But Rob Menzies, our line producer, lured us there. There was a film that was just finishing, a crew that was available, and the incentives attracted us.”

They discovered that Ottawa is a versatile and relatively unknown city that lends itself well to moviemaking. “A place like Albuquerque pretty much looks like Albuquerque,” Ryder says. “You have to go to great lengths to make it look like a different place. Whereas Ottawa is endlessly adaptable. It can double for Chicago or Boston or parts of New York. We found that the city has a lot to offer.”

Menzies, who is also one of the owners of Ottawa-based production company Zed Filmworks, helped Ryder and Mark Tonderai, the director, scout locations and assemble the crew. “The movie is very hip and it’s an exciting story,” he says. “Ottawa was perfect for it from the standpoint of the types of locations we have here. When Mark and Aaron came to do some scouting, they got a real sense of what the crews were going to be like. Ottawa is an undiscovered gem of a town. It’s between two of Canada’s two big production hubs, Toronto and Montreal, so we can pull from those resources and we’ve got locations that have never been on film before. You’ve got a film community that is welcoming production with open arms. There’s a pride in having a film of this caliber shot locally.”

According to Menzies, the crew outperformed even his high expectations. “It was a really great opportunity to showcase the talent of a phenomenal art department. This group worked so hard and they’re so dedicated to their craft. They managed to produce incredible sets without a big budget. They built entire sets, dressed some locations 100 percent, ripped apart people’s houses, made something drastically different, and then put it all back at the end of the day. It stretched us to the max, but I’m so proud of them.”

The filmmakers were extremely happy with the transformations the art department carried out. “Lisa Soper, the production designer, created so many great sets,” says Ryder. “She did an amazing job of turning a very ordinary restaurant into a classic Pennsylvania diner. She turned an ordinary house into a unique one for Ryan’s home. The amount of time she spent on that was impressive.”

Full of hidden corners and unseen dangers, terror conceivably lurks around every corner of the house. “And the unknown is always more frightening,” says Ryder. “It’s that thing that could grab your leg when you’re climbing downstairs in your basement at night. That thing that pops out when you’re walking through the woods at night. It’s not being able to see what’s out there that’s infinitely more frightening.”

The level of detail and imagination that went into creating Ryan’s neglected homestead unnerved even the actors. “That place was really scary,” says Shue. “I couldn’t believe they found a house that creepy. Everyone was scared to be in it. It was very moldy and dark and it even smelled weird. We were always imagining all the scary things that must have gone down in that house for real.”

Tonderai believes that the finished product is much more than simply an effective genre film. “People often dismiss horror films, but the best thrillers or horror say something important,” says Tonderai. “I reworked parts of the script not by saying I need a chase sequence here, but by drawing the reality out of the characters and the situation. We made sure that from the beginning of the film, people identify with characters, so that in any situation the audience goes with them. I call that giving the film a soul. For example, Jen’s character is a bit sloppy and surly, but she’s a teenager. You feel for her. She likes that boy next door and she’s the only one who gives him the time of day. That makes you like her.”

The director’s goal, he says, was to make the audience his partners. “I want to really scare them but not with cheap tricks. I believe that if you treat the audience with real respect and intelligence, they will become your co-conspirators. If you can make people care about the characters, then put them in jeopardy, it builds—first gear, second gear, and on and on. At the end, when you hit that final cut to black, it stays with them.”

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‘House at the End of the Street’, premiering on September 21, is based on an original short story by veteran writer, director and producer Jonathan Mostow, and underwent an extensive development process by Mostow and his producing partner, Hal Lieberman. “It’s uncommon to find material like this already really well-developed by expert filmmakers,” Aaron Ryder says. “Because of that, a lot of very experienced directors were interested in this project.”

With a deep pool of talent to draw from, Ryder and his fellow producers eventually selected Mark Tonderai, who had just created a stir in the independent film world with his debut feature, ‘Hush’, a tense and tightly plotted British thriller. “We were really excited to meet Mark because of Hush,” says Ryder. “With a relatively small budget and a limited amount of time, he created a really terrifying film. Hush reminded me of Jonathan Mostow’s ‘Breakdown’. It’s a really well-made, well-crafted film and Mark got the job because of that.”

In his sophomore outing, Tonderai stays one step ahead of his audience, keeping them off balance by creating plausible doubt and mounting suspicions. “This is a film that’s all about what lies beneath,” he says. “It’s about dualities. Everyone has that within them and I think that’s why the film works. Parenthood versus coming of age. Grief and redemption. First love and second chances. These are all the things that we talk about in this film. It is what gives the film a soul and keeps it from being just another horror-thriller. We wanted to elevate the genre and we worked really hard to do it.”

It was his desire to make a psychological thriller that achieved more than just scares that Tonderai says fueled his passion throughout the two years it took to make the film. “As a director it’s important to find something that strikes a chord with you, so I don’t look at story as much as I look at what the story is trying to say.”

That included exploring the relationships between Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence), her mother (Elizabeth Shue), and the enigmatic boy next door (Max Thieriot). “I had just had a child and I felt strongly that I wanted to deal with the issue of parenthood,” says the director. “I never forgot that this film is a thriller, but it is also about parents and how they can help us become who we are. And it’s a love story. A girl moves into a new home. She ends up falling for the neighbor boy who’s been through this horrific event. Everyone in the community is against them. It’s a very romantic notion.”

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The filmmakers of upcoming horror ‘House at the End of the Street’ scored a major casting coup when they selected Jennifer Lawrence to play Elissa. Lawrence, whose career has skyrocketed in the past two years, had already starred in the searing independent drama ‘Winter’s Bone’, for which she would be nominated for an Oscar at age 20. But she had not yet been cast in the role that would propel her to stardom, Katniss Everdeen in the action blockbuster ‘The Hunger Games’. Still, according to Aaron Ryder, her potential was unmistakable.

“The minute you meet Jennifer, you realize this girl has a very long career ahead of her,” says the producer. “She’s incredibly talented. Her work in ‘Winter’s Bone’ was one of the best performances I’d seen in a long time. She walked into my office on a general meeting before we even read the script and I couldn’t figure out if she was 30 years old or 18. She has a maturity and wisdom about her that is rare. Some people are just naturally confident, and that’s certainly the case with Jen. She’s exceptional. She’s a superstar in the making and we’re lucky to have her.”

The filmmakers cast Lawrence shortly after the release of ‘Winter’s Bone’. “With ‘The Hunger Games’, she became huge,” says Tonderai, the director. “But at the time, it was a risk. It obviously paid off. Jen seized the part and made a difficult, complicated role her own.”

Lawrence had only a handful of films under her belt at the time and the idea of taking on a horror-thriller for the first time was immensely appealing. “This was something completely different for me,” says Lawrence. “I had never worked in this genre before and it was an amazing experience to do something so completely out of my comfort zone. But I really liked that it wasn’t about scaring people with blood or what I think of as ‘boo’ elements. The characters are very well developed and you find yourself getting scared for them in a personal way. You are both invested in the love story and afraid for Elissa. It is a very sophisticated way to frighten an audience.”

The actress says she also responded to the way the script deals with the idea of how we make choices about other people. “We constantly tell ourselves to listen to our instincts,” Lawrence says. “But what if you go out on a limb listening to your gut and then you end up being wrong? There are so many twists in the characters that you never know who you can trust. You spend the entire movie wondering.

“I love horror movies,” she admits. “I love scary shows like ‘Celebrity Ghost Story,’ which is not supposed to be scary but scares me to death. I’m like a five-year-old. My imagination is out of control.”

She credits Tonderai with making the fear factor real and visceral by keeping the focus on good storytelling and realistic characters. “I had faith in Mark,” she says. “He always saw it as a character piece, with no cheap scares, just humans being frightened, because we can’t trust ourselves. He’s the most inspiring person I’ve worked with. He really cares about what he does, which you see in things like the bible. He broke down the entire movie, including each character. It helped us get a better perspective on everything.”

The role, with its complicated action scenes, required more physicality than the young actress had ever handled before. “There was a lot more thinking on my feet than I had done previously,” Lawrence says. “In a big emotional scene with another actor, we can always rehearse it. But how in the world are you going to rehearse running upstairs, screaming and crawling on the floor? I would sit there before Mark called action playing it over and over in my head, but it could turn out completely different in the moment. You don’t know what can happen until you do it.”

Because her character is a budding musician, Lawrence got the opportunity to return to a passion she had abandoned. “I love to sing,” she says. “But once I became an actress, I shut it all down. It was so much fun to go to the studio with Benji Hughes and Steve Lindsey, who are absolute geniuses. We recorded music for hours and hours.”

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Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence, fresh off her success in the worldwide hit ‘The Hunger Games’, and Oscar nominee Elisabeth Shue (‘Leaving Las Vegas’, ‘Piranha 3D’) star in ‘House at the End of the Street’; an edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller about a teenager, Elissa, and her divorced mom, Sarah, who move into an upscale neighborhood to start a better life. But after they learn of rumors that the nearby woods are haunted by a homicidal killer, and Elissa befriends the mysterious sole survivor of a grisly double murder that took place in the house next door, their dreams for a brighter future spiral into a twisted nightmare.

Things go smoothly at first: Sarah (Elizabeth Shue) finds a good job and meets a nice guy while Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) settles in at school and finds herself drawn to the boy next door, Ryan (Max Thieriot, ‘My Soul to Take’). Ryan seems like a kindred spirit, misunderstood and passionate, and Elissa sympathizes with his isolation—he is still shunned by the town years after his deranged sister Carrie Anne murdered their parents in a fit of inexplicable rage.

But as Ryan and Elissa spend more time together, details of his past come to the surface. Finding out the truth could be the worst thing that ever happened to Elissa.

‘House at the End of the Street’ is directed by Mark Tonderai (‘Hush’). David Loucka (‘Dream House’) wrote the screenplay based on a story by Jonathan Mostow (‘Surrogates’, ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’).

Exploring the House

A spooky, decaying house, a young man with a terrifying secret and a teenage girl with a mind of her own are classic elements of horror-thriller movies, but in ‘House at the End of the Street’, a team of ambitious and creative filmmakers transcends the genre with moody, stylish visuals, realistic and relatable characters, and mysterious secrets hidden in plain sight.

“‘House at the End of the Street’ is complicated in the way most good movies are,” says producer Aaron Ryder. “It is a bit of a Hitchcockian thriller, geared toward a younger audience with a great young cast. The script is really good—and by that I mean really scary.”

The characters in ‘House at the End of the Street’ are haunted by a horrific tragedy that took place several years before the movie starts. “A couple was murdered by their mentally handicapped daughter who has disappeared,” says Ryder. “Now Elissa and her mother Sarah move into the house next door to where this massacre happened. There is a single survivor, a young man named Ryan, still living in the house. Elissa begins a relationship, maybe her first love, with this kid. But it turns out there’s an underlying evil within this town.”

Although this taut psychological thriller is full of the kinds of twists and surprises that keep audiences on the edge of their seats, ‘House at the End of the Street’ is a character-driven film, says the producer. “One of the things I like about this movie and these characters is that no one is stereotypical,” says Ryder. “You don’t have the stereotypical mother-daughter relationship. Elissa is actually a bit more responsible than Sarah. Ryan is dark and mysterious, but also very vulnerable and really attractive. You can see why a young girl would be attracted to him.”

Image Courtesy of  House at the End of the Street

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Santa Monica, U.S.A. — IMAX Corporation and Lionsgate, a leading diversified global entertainment company, announced that ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’, the second film in the wildly popular franchise, will be released in the immersive IMAX format.

The first Hunger Games film just crossed the $400 million mark at the North American box office, making it the 14th highest-grossing film of all time. The film has grossed nearly $650 million worldwide, with a rollout in China (including 67 IMAX screens) later this month.

Helping to further eventize this cultural phenomenon and transport moviegoers into the world of Panem, director Francis Lawrence will utilize IMAX cameras in filming portions of ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’. Exclusively in IMAX theatres, sequences shot with the extremely high-resolution cameras will expand to fill the entire screen with unprecedented crispness and clarity, putting moviegoers right into the action alongside Katniss and her fellow Tributes. Leading the cast is Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence, reprising her role as Katniss Everdeen, along with fellow returning cast members Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne and Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark.

“We are thrilled to continue the productive partnership we enjoyed with IMAX on the first installment of ‘The Hunger Games’,” said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairs Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger. “Our partnership on the first Hunger Games film was a resounding success, and we look forward to building on that experience with an expanded IMAX relationship on Catching Fire. IMAX delivers a unique and memorable experience that is the perfect way to celebrate this special moviegoing event.”

“Beyond the global phenomenon that was ‘The Hunger Games’, the film resonated exceptionally with IMAX fans, resulting in sell outs across the network during the limited IMAX run,” said Greg Foster, Chairman and President, IMAX Filmed Entertainment. “We are excited to expand our partnership with directorFrancis Lawrence, producers Nina Jacobson and Jon Kilik and the Lionsgate team as Catching Fire joins a select group of blockbuster titles that have filmed with IMAX cameras, elevating the property to the next level.”

The IMAX release of ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience with proprietary IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering) technology. The crystal-clear images, coupled with IMAX’s customized theatre geometry and powerful digital audio, create a unique environment that will make audiences feel as if they are in the movie.

‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ is based on the second book in Suzanne Collins’ bestselling series. It chronicles the life of Katniss Everdeen after she emerges from the 74th Annual Hunger Games victorious — but far from safe. Even as she becomes an unwitting symbol of the rebellion mounting in the districts, Katniss never loses sight of her commitment to protect her family. ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ will be directed by Francis Lawrence, and produced by Nina Jacobson’s Color Force in tandem with producerJon Kilik. The novel on which the film is based is the second in a trilogy that has over 36 million copies in print in the U.S. alone.

Image Courtesy of The Hunger Games

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Carslbad, U.SA. – He may be leader of the free world, but little did anyone know President Barrack Obama was also a natural vocalist. This year, President Obama claimed the number one spot in NAMM’s annual survey on America’s favorite “Unexpected Musician,” a personality not primarily known for playing a musical instrument, with a majority of 29%.

Since crooning a few lines of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” at a New York fundraising event in January, the president has captured America’s heart with his surprising talent. In an interview with Barbara Walters one month prior, he revealed that he deeply regrets not having learned a musical instrument in school.

Seasoned Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep (violin) tied with actor Robert Downey, Jr.(piano, vocals) for second-place, both securing 24% of votes, while funnyman Steve Carell came in fourth place (10%) for his flute-playing skills, over “The Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence (5%), who plays the guitar.

The National Association of Music Merchants created the Unexpected Musicians Database in 2010 in response to a Gallup Poll that found 85% of Americans who do not play a musical instrument wish they did in an effort to encourage aspiring musicians by helping them find further musical inspiration from celebrities they already admire.

The extensive list includes professional athletes, actors, politicians and more. From Julia Roberts’ skills on the clarinet to Clint Eastwood’s hidden piano talent, the detailed database offers fans the opportunity to find out just how talented their favorite celebrities really are, demonstrating that anyone can become a musician despite age, experience or profession. The Unexpected Musicians Database can be found at wannaplaymusic website.

This year, as part of NAMM’s National Wanna Play Music Week (May 7-13, 2012), the association commissioned a survey to learn which Unexpected Musicians Americans favor most. Key survey findings include:

• More women (28 %) than men (23 %) were excited to discover that President Obama is a vocalist, while 20 % of women and 27 % of men were excited to learn that Robert Downey, Jr. sings and plays the piano.
• Millennials were most excited to learn about President Obama’s (30 %) and Robert Downey, Jr.’s (30 %) musical talents.
• Meanwhile, survey-takers aged 65-plus were most excited to learn about Meryl Streep’s musical abilities, with 37 % voting for the actress. Streep was also the Baby Boomers’ celebrity of choice at 34 %.

The findings are the result of a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,000 adults ages 18 and over, living in the United States, conducted by KRC Research, April 19-22, 2012, on behalf of NAMM. The margin of error for this study is +3.1 % at the 95 % confidence level. The data was weighted by demographic variables to ensure the sample accurately reflects the U.S. adult population.

Image Courtesy of  cinemafestival / Shutterstock.com

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Much like the Tributes they portray, the young cast of the film adaptation of the successful book by Suzanne Collins had to immediately jump into the most intensive training of their lives to prepare for the highly physical action of ‘The Hunger Games’.

They beefed up, leaned out and dialed in their skills via a comprehensive but crash-bang, 8-week training program just before production began. Most of all, they immersed themselves into the psychological situations faced by their characters, who each must use everything they’ve got – body, mind and soul – if they have any hope of beating the remote odds against them all.

“We had to take a cast, most of whom had no previous action experience, and turn them into stunt people capable of firing bows, throwing spears and climbing trees,” explains director Gary Ross. “There was a massive training component to making it all real. In the end, we only rarely used stunt doubles.”

Stunt coordinators Chad Stahelski and Allan Poppleton began by teaching combat choreography to the cast – with a twist. “The interesting part is that Gary really didn’t want the action to feel choreographed so we tried to create a more spontaneous feeling of wild, emotional struggle,” explains Stahelski. “We looked at each character and talked about their skills, their energy levels, the way they move and working with all of those elements, ran with the action sequences from there.”

Meanwhile, stunt trainer Logan Hood set up a gym program with an emphasis on functional fitness – using everything from free weights to pushups and pull-ups to rope climbs and high box jumps – with each actor given a custom training program specific to their character. The training also included elements of “free running,” the newfangled sport of urban gymnastics, featuring free-form, creative acrobatic moves over all kinds of obstacles.

“The training had to transfer directly to their characters’ personalities and backgrounds,” explains Hood. “We weren’t interested so much in creating ‘gym bodies’ as in creating seamless, believable performances for each of the Tributes.”

Though main actress Jennifer Lawrence is naturally athletic, she says she worked hard at trying to bring out Katniss’ grace under fire. “Since half the movie for me is running, I worked extensively with a running coach. All day long I was running down mountains, through sticks and brush, and doing it over and over again,” she explains.

“I also worked a lot on climbing, both at rock gyms and on real trees, as well as on vault stunts and even more on archery. The training was really rough, but also really fun.”

The Zen focus of archery was challenging for Lawrence to master – as she learned to use both an old school hunting bow and the futuristic “recurve” bow, a twist on current Olympic bows, used in the Games — but very rewarding when she did. “Archery is a real mind game, all about total focus,” she says, “and if you do one thing wrong, you get whipped with a string going like a hundred miles an hour and it’s painful! I developed a real love-hate relationship with it. Ultimately, the bow became my friend.”

As part of her stunt work in the woods, Lawrence also had to confront a wall of fire created by Special Effects Set Foreman Brandon McLaughlin and Special Effects Coordinator Steve Cremin who built steel trees to withstand a forest blaze that was later enhanced by Visual Effects Supervisor Sheena Duggal. Says McLaughlin: “Gary’s idea was to keep everything real as possible. So instead of a ten-foot fireball that defies reality, he wanted a six-foot fireball moving at Katniss in a way that you really feel it.”

By the time production was underway, Lawrence was ready for whatever Katniss would face. “Jennifer was up for anything, bringing a great attitude to the training,” recalls Robin Bissell.

“Every day she would drive out to UCLA to train then head to the Valley for stunt training, then off to rock climbing and then to Santa Monica for lessons with an Olympic archer. She worked really, really hard and by the time we were filming, she had an amazing acumen for all of Katniss’ skills.”

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Suzanne Collins’ best-selling novel ‘The Hunger Games’, burst into theaters March 23, 2012 to thunderous success. It reaped over $152 million dollars its opening weekend, making it the highest-grossing film of the year thus far. However, unlike the film trailing its numbers, ‘The Lorax’ (2012), ‘The Hunger Games’ has a rich story, lush characters, and gut-wrenching emotional moments woven into the action and drama.

The plot revolves around the recently war-torn nation of Panem, where society is split between a capital full of rich, carefree socialites and twelve districts where the impoverished losers of a war live. Each year, the capitol holds the Hunger Games—a competition where a boy and girl, ages 12 to 18, are chosen from each district to fight in a survival tournament, until only one of them remains.

The main character, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), has a younger sister named Primrose, who is worried about getting picked for the Hunger Games, as everyone’s name is drawn at random. Coincidentally, Primrose’s name is picked at the Reaping, the ceremony where the competitors are chosen, and Katniss volunteers herself to take her sister’s place. Alongside Katniss is Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a boy she had seen around her home before.

They are taken into the capitol to be trained and prepare for the games. They meet Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), a former winner of the Hunger Games and their mentor, and Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), who mentally prepares them for the vigor of the Game. Haymitch and Cinna emphasize the importance of Katniss and Peeta becoming memorable players in the Game in order to get sponsors, who will drop off food, medicine, and weapons for them if they grow to like them.

This leads to Peeta revealing that he has a crush on Katniss, thus creating an underdog couple for the citizens to root for. Katniss is angered by this revelation at first, but she eventually learns that there is more to Peeta than she thought. Then, the Game begins and everything in both their worlds becomes chaos.

‘The Hunger Games’ is directed by Gary Ross, who some will know for his work directing ‘Pleasantville’ (1998) and ‘Seabiscuit’ (2003). Ross’ direction is excellent, as every moment during the game feels tense and brutal. However, there will be a problem from viewers who suffer from motion sickness, because of the jittery camera movements at certain intense sequences of violence during the film. Otherwise, the camera work of the film is nothing short of brilliant.

The true appeal of this film is its characters. Katniss is a strong girl with enough flaws to keep the audience interested, and a will that just won’t quit. The most interesting emotional aspect of the film is her reaction to Peeta’s feelings for her. She begins feeling uninterested in him romantically, but the vicious deaths in the Game eventually bring them closer together.

However, the audience is left pondering if her feelings are genuine or if she is only obligated to stay with him due to them being the “star-crossed lovers” of District 12. Further complications come from a friend of hers back home named Gale (Liam Hemsworth), who may have been interested in her before she volunteered to take her sister’s place. The script leaves these relationships open to interpretation and thus all the more intriguing for the next film, ‘Catching Fire.’

There are only two detractors I noted in the film. First, the aforementioned character Gale does not receive adequate time to have a real emotional impact. He spends about five or six minutes with Katniss, and while their friendship is established efficiently, the lack of focus on him for the remainder of the movie leaves things too ambiguous.

Katniss’ relationship with Peeta would have better impact if the film had spent more time with her and Gale interacting because it would show the awkwardness Katniss feels when returning home, knowing that Gale saw them together. Granted, I have not yet read the novels and so this may be intentional, but strictly from a moviegoer’s perspective, it could have been done a little better.

Second, the violence of the film needs to be brought to the potential audience’s attention. These are children forced to murder each other, and some of them enjoy killing one another, so the PG-13 rating should be noted at all costs. Any unwitting parent bringing a child into the film would be horrified by the first sequence and everything after it.

I worry that the trailers do not do the brutality of the deaths enough justice, and thus warn anyone with a weak constitution to consider staying away.

Overall, ‘The Hunger Games’ deserves every cent it has taken in since the premiere. It proves that a great story about young adults can break box office records, without the help of sparkling vampires or teenage wizards. Whether it’s the novels or the film, ‘The Hunger Games’ will leave you wanting more.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.thehungergamesmovie.com

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Fans of Suzanne Collins’ ‘The Hunger Games’ are flocking to cinemas these days to root for Jennifer Lawrence’s heroine Katniss Everdeen. When her sister is chosen as Tribute, she volunteers to compete in the life-or-death show.

Once the Hunger Games get underway, Katniss must take the measure of her fellow Tributes, any one of whom could cause her demise. The casting of the two dozen Tributes was a major undertaking. “In the book, each Tribute has his or her own very specific social ranking and physical description, so we were very selective and cast them one at a time,” explains producer Jon Kilik.

“Our casting director, Debbie Zane, is just amazing at finding the most talented people from ages 12 to 18. She cast a wide net and was incredibly diligent. She and Gary worked patiently and very hard until we put the whole group together.”

The most fearsomely dangerous of the competitors are the so-called “Career Tributes,” who have been groomed and physically trained for the Games since the day they were born. Especially worrisome to Katniss are the four most favored Careers: Clove played by Isabelle Fuhrman, Cato played by Alexander Ludwig, Glimmer played by Leven Rambin and Marvel played by Jack Quaid. Each brings his or her own special skill.

“Clove has a lot more brains than a lot of the Tributes,” says Fuhrman, who recently came to the fore in the horror movie ‘Orphan’. “The interesting thing is that she looks very girly and frilly, but she also a very dark side to her.”

Adds Ludwig, best known for his role in ‘Race to Witch Mountain’: “Cato is someone who is very strong, physically and mentally, and is ruthless, but I think deep, deep down there was a good person inside him before he went into these Games.”

For Rambin, seen in roles on “One Tree Hill,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “CSI: Miami,” the key to Glimmer was going at everything 110%. “Glimmer considers the Games an honor,” she notes. “She enjoys the fame, and because of that she can be a great threat.”

Quaid, who makes his feature film debut in ‘The Hunger Games’, says of Marvel: “I wouldn’t say he’s the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is ecstatic to be there and he just goes for it.”

Among the more ordinary Tributes who are just as terrified and overwhelmed as Katniss, two immediately draw her respect: little Rue, who was reaped for the Games at the tender age of 12; and the quick and clever Foxface. A pair of rising newcomers takes on the roles: Amandla Stenberg as Rue and Jacqueline Emerson as Foxface.

Stenberg went all out for the part, rolling in dirt outside before auditioning for Ross at his home. “I had leaves in my hair and everything,” Stenberg recalls. “Gary has a really nice house, and I didn’t want to sit on anything and get it dirty, so I found a little stool to sit on. I was really nervous.”

Anxious as she was, it was clear she had a deep affinity for Rue, who becomes Katniss’ ally. “I’d read the book four times and I just loved Rue because she’s so smart and agile and yet sweet,” says Stenberg. “I think when Katniss sees Rue, she thinks of her sister and that’s why she loves her.”

On the set, Stenberg also developed a tight-knit, best-friends relationship with Lawrence that further added to their roles. “They bonded in a real big sister/little sister way, which was fantastic for the movie,” says Ross. “Sometimes they were laughing so much I had to tell them to knock it off but it truly mirrored the closeness that Katniss and Rue have.”

One of Suzanne Collins’ favorite scenes is Rue’s final sequence, which Collins witnessed on set. “The scene’s so key, not only because of its emotional impact on Katniss — Rue’s essentially become Prim’s surrogate in the arena — but because it has to be powerful enough to trigger the first rumblings of the rebellion,” notes the author.

“It’s very demanding for the actors. All three of the kids — Jen, Amandla and Jack — gave terrific performances. T Bone Burnett came up with this lovely, haunting melody for the lullaby. And Gary, who was masterminding the whole thing, filmed it beautifully. There’s this one shot of Katniss cradling Rue in the periwinkle with the lush background of the forest.

On the monitor it looked like an exquisite portrait, like something you’d frame and hang in a museum. I remember Amandla came and sat next to me between takes and asked me, ‘So, what did you imagine it would be like?’ And I said, ‘Like that.’ But really, it exceeded my expectations.”

Rue’s co-Tribute, Thresh, played by Nigerian newcomer Dayo Okeniyi, tries to watch out for her. “Thresh is your basic, hard-working guy from the farming district who loves his family and just wants to see them again. For him, Rue is like a baby sister,” says Okeniyi.  “He wants to protect her, but he knows a time may come when he will have to make a decision between his life or her life. In his heart, there’s a constant tug-of-war.”

Emerson was equally taken with Foxface. “I love that she’s the smartest Tribute and that’s the way she makes her way through the Games,” she observes. “Her whole strategy is to evade capture. She’s always two steps ahead of the game, thinking of the one thing nobody else could.”

Yet within all the physical drama, Emerson says that Ross always kept the cast focused on the inner experience of their characters. “The great thing about Gary directing ‘The Hunger Games’ is that he set out to find the heart of this story,” summarizes Emerson. “It’s not just a flashy action movie. It’s about people and ideas you’ll walk out of the theatre thinking about for a long time.”

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Jennifer Lawrence, star of ‘The Hunger Games’, says one thing instantly drew her into the depths of Katniss: “Her strength.” She continues: “I’m always drawn to strong characters, because I want to be like that. This is a girl who has the whole world placed on her shoulders and she becomes a kind of futuristic Joan of Arc.

I just knew that I had so much respect for the books and who she is that there was nothing I wouldn’t do to bring that out in the right way. I also loved that Gary understood that this movie is not about Katniss looking cool with a bow-and-arrow – it’s about her being heartbroken by all that she has to do.”

The actress was undeterred by what she knew would be intense scrutiny by Katniss’ millions of fans. “There’s a lot of pressure when you’re playing a character so many people are crazy about, but I felt I could rest easy because I was committed to do the very best that I could,” Lawrence states. “I knew we had a group of talented people focused on making the best possible movie and that’s what I believed in.”

With Lawrence cast, the next task was to find the boy with whom she is paired in the Games: her co-Tribute, Peeta Mellark, who has long had a secret crush on Katniss but cannot be sure if she is to be trusted. Taking on Peeta is Josh Hutcherson, best known for his roles in ‘The Kids Are All Right’ and ‘Bridge to Teribithia’ — and once again Ross was instantly certain about the choice.

“It was unbelievably clear with Josh. He came in and was able to articulate everything we felt about the character,” the director recalls. “He said ‘Peeta is someone who can disarm the world with his charm, but he knows who he loves and he’s always loved Katniss. He loves her so intensely, she is the one person he would give everything for.’ After that, I felt ‘now I have Peeta and I can do this film.’”

Suzanne Collins was equally taken with the casting. She put it this way to Entertainment Weekly: “If Josh had been bright purple and had six foot wings and gave that audition, I’d have been like ‘Cast him!’ ‘We can work around the wings!’ He was that good.”

Hutcherson remembers that the minute he began reading the book, he was swept up and felt a connection with Peeta. “I’ve never seen a character so close to me as a person,” he says. “His self-deprecating humor, his outlook on life, and the way he wants to stay true to who he is no matter what are all things I could really relate to from my own life. I was very into Peeta from the get-go.”

As the Games get underway, Peeta becomes even clearer about his aim. “His goal is to make sure Katniss survives,” Hutcherson explains. “His greatest skill is his ability to talk with people, to negotiate and manipulate, and he uses that not in a conniving way, but to protect Katniss.“

That was easy for Hutcherson, given his rapport with Lawrence. “I think Jen perfectly encapsulates a young woman who finds the power to take care of herself and others around her. She has both a hardness and a vulnerability that’s beautiful and really genuine,” he says of his co-star.

Playing Katniss’ longtime best friend in District 12 is Australian actor Liam Hemsworth.  He, too, came to the set with a very strong sense of his character. “Gale is a decent but strong-minded guy who hates nothing more than the Capitol,” says the actor. “He hates everything they stand for. He hates what they do to people.

And he thinks the Hunger Games are very, very wrong. With Katniss, he’s always felt they were each other’s only escape from this horrible world they live in. But once Katniss is picked for the Hunger Games, he is forced to watch this whole thing unfold with Peeta, wondering who she is really meant to end up with.”

Notes Jon Kilik: “Casting ‘The Hunger Games’ was like fitting pieces of an epic puzzle together and Liam as Gale was one of those perfectly matching pieces. He’s got such a strong physical presence, and a kind of natural heroic quality, that really embodies who Gale is in the book.”

District 12 is also home to the one person who fuels Katniss’ survival instincts like no other: Primrose, the little sister Katniss swore she would always protect and whose place she takes in the Games. In auditions, Ross was immediately impressed with Willow Shields, an 11-year-old from Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Willow was one of those amazing finds, and I was dumbstruck that a girl at her age could have so much talent,” says Ross.

Says Shields, “Prim is someone who has had a really rough life and yet she’s always really helpful and nice to her sister.”

Once Katniss is sent to the Capitol, Primrose is left in the care of her traumatized, widowed mother, who finally begins to awaken from her daze. Mrs. Everdeen is played by Paula Malcomson, the Irish actress seen on “Deadwood,” “Lost” and “Sons of Anarchy.” For Malcomson, ‘The Hunger Games’ was a true ensemble experience.

“Gary put together a great cast. He is someone for whom every detail is precious and that’s the stuff actors love:  all that connective tissue that allows you to explore the moments between the moments,” she says. “I found it exciting to see this phenomenal book brought to life by people who cared so much about what they were doing.”

Image Courtesy of   Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

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Once word was out that a film version of ‘The Hunger Games’ was in the works, speculation about casting snowballed into an internet phenomenon of its own.

Amidst the hoopla, the filmmakers began coming to grips with just how intensely invested fans of the book were in seeing something they could believe in on screen. It became clear that everyone who read the book had their own clear idea of who Katniss or Gale or Peeta should be,” notes the director, Gary Ross. “It’s a testament to how connected people become to this story, and I found it incredibly exciting.”

Adds producer Nina Jacobson: “People were very opinionated about who should play the roles and that was obviously a lot of pressure. But I feel the same way when I love a book – I don’t want anyone to mess it up. So as we began the casting process, we talked a lot about looking for the essence of these characters in the actors. You can create a lot of different things on screen, but you can’t create that essence. You have to go out and find it.”

Katniss and District 12

It began with the most difficult character of all to cast – the girl who rises from the dust and grime of Panem’s mining district to become an iconic rebel heroine: Katniss Everdeen. Her origins might be common, but Katniss is anything but a simple girl. Driven by harsh circumstances, she can be cold and calculating at times but at her core she is selfless and loyal. Only 16, she also is still very much in the process of forming her own ideals and notions of love and self-worth . . . in a world where such things are nearly impossible.

“Katniss is a fierce, independent survivor,” describes Gary Ross. “She’s a hunter, an archer and an athlete, and as the story begins, she already has amazing skills she’s developed to protect and fend for her family. Most importantly, she’s someone who comes to know her own truth. One thing Suzanne and I talked about is that she is a bit like Joan of Arc – someone who can’t abide tyrants, which ultimately gives her the courage to defy the Capitol.”

Executive producer Robin Bissell further observes, “In the middle of the Games, important questions arise for Katniss – not just can she survive but is she able to love, and who does she love? She gains remarkable strength but also blossoms as a human being.”

Young actresses across the world coveted the role, but the search stopped when Ross and Lionsgate executives met with Jennifer Lawrence, who had garnered an Oscar nomination for her devastating performance as a girl protecting her family in the low-budget indie thriller ‘Winter’s Bone’. Most importantly, Collins herself gave her blessing to Lawrence.

Collins admits that initially she had some trepidation over the idea that anyone could embody the Katniss she’d envisioned. But Lawrence set those worries to rest. In a letter to readers of Entertainment Weekly, Collins wrote: “In her remarkable audition piece, I watched Jennifer embody every essential quality necessary to play Katniss.

I saw a girl who has the potential rage to send an arrow into the Gamemakers and the protectiveness to make Rue her ally. Who has conquered both Peeta and Gale’s hearts even though she’s done her best to wall herself off emotionally from anything that would lead to romance.

Most of all, I believed that this was a girl who could hold out that handful of berries and incite the beaten down districts of Panem to rebel. I think that was the essential question for me. Could she believably inspire a rebellion? Did she project the strength, defiance and intellect you would need to follow her into certain war?

For me, she did. Jennifer’s just an incredible actress. So powerful, vulnerable, beautiful, unforgiving and brave. I never thought we’d find somebody this amazing for the role. And I can’t wait for everyone to see her play it.”

“I felt I’d found the one person who could possibly play Katniss,” recalls Ross of meeting Lawrence. “I’ve worked with many amazing actors but I think someone like Jen comes around once in a generation. She’s an unbelievable talent and she brings so many qualities that are raw and true to the character, from her natural athleticism to her emotional power. I can always imagine different versions of films I direct, but I can’t imagine a version of this film without Jen.”

Adds Jacobson: “In her audition, Jen stole the role. There was instant power, intensity and certainty in her performance. Some people can be fierce and others can be tender, but Jen is both.”

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