All praises for J.Law

There’s J.Lo (Jennifer Lopez) and, don’t look now, there’s also J.Law, the monicker fans have fondly bestowed on Jennifer Lawrence as a nod to her landmark performance as Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games, based on the best-selling novels by Suzanne Collins, which grossed more than $700 million worldwide in 2011 and turned J.Law into an overnight superstar.

Opening today nationwide released by Pioneer Films is Hunger Games: Catching Fire, this time directed by Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer), in which J.Law reprises her Katniss Everdeen character, more popularly known as The Girl on Fire. The last two films from the franchise will be shown in 2014 and 2015.

Aside from J.Law (last year’s Oscar Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook) and director Francis who were featured in Conversations with Ricky Lo last Sunday, I also interviewed five other members of the cast whom I interviewed during the Hollywood junket for Catching Fire at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. I’m focusing the spotlight on three of them: Donald Sutherland as the despotic Coriolanus Snow, president of Panem, who is deadset on destroying Katniss and her Games partner Peeta Mellark (played by Josh Hutcherson, also featured in this piece), and rock star Lenny Kravitz (who once made news as Nicole Kidman’s boyfriend) as Cinna (Katniss’ stylist).

As I mentioned in an earlier column, before the TV cameras began rolling for the Startalk interviews, all the Catching Fire stars expressed their sympathy for the victims of Typhoon Yolanda, with a look of genuine concern in their faces as they inquired how my family and those of other Filipinos were doing.

On to the interviews…

The three actors were all praises for J.Law

“I love Jennifer,” said Donald, 78, repeating what he told People magazine. “I adore her, I admire her and I cherish her company. I am thrilled no end by her delicacy and her wit.”

“She’s genuine, she’s humble, she’s very natural,” said Lenny. “She hasn’t let success go to her head. She deserves it. She’s a real respectful person and she’s funny. I love her as a person and it doesn’t really matter to me what awards she has won. I simply enjoy her company. In fact, we’re like a family because she has become close to my daughter Zoe.”

“Working with Jennifer is so much fun,” gushed Josh, also a native of Kentucky, USA, like J.Law. “It’s so much fun. We’re filming the last two installments of the franchise, we’re almost done, and already I’m missing Jennifer and the rest of the cast. We’ve become such good friends, you know.”

By the way, before the Q&A, Donald recalled that he was in the Philippines in 1971 when, according to him, “Marcos was president,” adding, “I read the book on the Philippines called Philippine Society and Revolution.”

Going back to the franchise is absolutely delightful, said Donald.

“Working on Catching Fire just enveloped you. When I saw the movie, I was simply blown away. It’s a movie for adults, seriously, not just for teenagers. Playing President Coriolanus Snow was mind-blowing. It feels like a world power; he controls the government. He deals with things in a most pragmatic way. Look around and you see wars in many parts of the world and the movie reminds me of all these wars, with hundreds of people dying.”

And how does it feel working with the new generation of actors, especially J.Law?

“Jennifer is different because she’s 138 years old,” Donald said tongue-in-cheek. “She’s the most stable actress I’ve ever worked with; she’s extraordinary. I agreed with her when she said that working on the franchise didn’t feel like work at all. We had a lot of fun.”

Josh started as a child actor at age 9 and fondly remembered for his breakout role as Annette Bening and Julianne Moore’s son in The Kids Are All Right (nominated for Oscar Best Film). He’s a co-founder of Straight But Not Narrow, a youth organization which supports gay rights, although he insisted in an Out magazine interview that “maybe I could say that I am 100 percent straight.”

How was it growing up in the limelight?

“ It was all normal for me because that has been the way I lived,” Josh said, “so I didn’t know anything different. It’s give-and-take. I didn’t know certain things that other kids did growing up but, you know, there’s positive and negative in everything and the positive thing for me is that I’m doing exactly the thing that I love doing the most.”

Asked how he prepared for Catching Fire…you know, was the preparation more intense than that for the first one?

Lenny smiled, “I just showed up on the set, and that was it. I showed up for work. Well, it wasn’t really that crazy.”

Is it true that the set designer was influenced by Lenny’s home interior design?

“Yes,” Lenny admitted in the same People mag interview. “He came up to me one day and was like, ‘I was looking at some inspiration stuff, and I had no idea that I was looking at your house.’ So that was cool. There were a few items on-set that I actually own. There are some lamps that I have and a big couch.”

(Coming next: Interview with Sam Claflin and Elizabeth Banks.)

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. You may also send your questions to [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on www.twitter/therealrickylo.)