By: debbie lynn elias
From Hawkeye Pierce to President Coriolanus Snow and Everything In Between:
DONALD SUTHERLAND Talks THE HUNGER GAMES
For decades, Donald Sutherland has “wowed” us at the box office with chameleonic, strong personalities and characters. Performances always filled with nuance and subtlety, Sutherland is as ethereal and calculating as a champion chess player, meticulously designing each move, each word, to provoke and elicit emotion and intrigue. Most recently, he had me spellbound in a little indie gem, The Man On The Train, in which U2 drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. makes his acting debut going toe-to-toe with Sutherland in a dazzling dance of character study. And now, the light shines on Sutherland for an entirely new generation of fans as he takes center stage as President Coriolanus Snow in the much anticipated, movie event of the year, THE HUNGER GAMES.
During the recent press junket for THE HUNGER GAMES, Sutherland was enthusiastic and contemplative on not only tackling President Snow, but on acting and life, in general. Given his vast experience, one must wonder what it takes to lure Sutherland to a project like THE HUNGER GAMES, and a role like Snow, but for him, the answer is simple. ” Whatever starts my heart. I read THE HUNGER GAMES and I couldn’t believe it actually could be true, so I pushed it away. I sat back and said to my wife, ‘I think I’ve just read something that could change everything.’ I had no idea about THE HUNGER GAMES. I knew nothing about the books or the fascination with them. I only discovered that, in the dermatologists office.” As only he can tell it story, Sutherland regales us with patients and staff in the doctor’s office on learning he had “just finished shooting THE HUNGER GAMES. I got maybe the ‘m’ of THE HUNGER GAMES out, and the office was suddenly filled with people jumping up and down in hysteria. And those were adults! So, I figured it out then.”
Sutherland is quite philosophical as he reflects on his thoughts when receiving the script. “It seemed to me that it was a game-changer. It had the possibility, if it were properly done, to catalyze, motivate and mobilize a generation of young people who were, in my opinion, by and large, dormant in the political process. You have Occupy Wall Street, but that seems to have a limited base. I felt and I hoped that maybe this could spread out across the country. I don’t care what they do, just so long as they stand up and do something, and identify the political situation they’re in. I was thrilled at that possibility.”
At the time director Gary Ross approached Sutherland to play Snow, the part was rather “peripheral.” But while they were in North Carolina “talking about the nature of these oligarchies of the privileged and how to administer them, [Ross] said, ‘I’m going to write a couple of scenes.’ . . .So, he went away and then came back with a couple of scenes of such economy of language and such specificity. He said, ‘I think what we have to talk about is hope and fear.’ Those scenes are not in the book. He wrote them, and Suzanne Collins [author] loves them. It’s so perfectly defined what an administrator or bureaucrat like Coriolanus Snow has to do. How do you keep that underclass under control? You offer them a little hope.”
According to Sutherland, “[Ross] is brilliant. He’s an amazing man. He really is. You’re loathe to use the word genius, but he’s quite extraordinary, from my point of view.”
When asked to describe President Snow, Sutherland’s entire demeanor begins to change. He sits a little straighter, holds his head a bit higher. Even the timbre of his voice changes as he becomes more reflective on the character. “[Snow] expects someone to come and challenge his position. He’s very confident. His main priority is roses. You see that he looks different from the people in the community. He’s much older and he comes from a different generation. In the same sense that my parents didn’t really like Elvis Presley and I was crazy about him, it’s the same with President Snow. I don’t know how much he approves of all that’s going on, but it’s okay.”
He is equally philosophical when it comes to discussing the relationship between Snow and the film’s heroine, Katniss Everdeen who is played by Jennifer Lawrence, an actor whom he describes as “one of the very best actors working today” and goes so far as to admit telling Lawrence, “You should change your name to Jennifer Lawrence Olivier.” “I think [Snow] sees challenge, and I think he sees something in Katniss Everdeen that’s been let loose. He sees the challenge that he’s been waiting for. You know that somebody is going to come up sometime, and this particular girl is someone who you can’t just kill. You have to find some other way of controlling and containing her.”
And now that the waiting is almost over and THE HUNGER GAMES marks its world premiere, what’s next for Donald Sutherland (besides, hopefully THE HUNGER GAMES sequel)? A long time coming and long overdue, in three weeks Sutherland teams up with his son, Kiefer, for “a cowboy film in Saskatchewan, as a father and a son.” And of course, playing it to the hilt, with the driest deadpan I have ever heard, “I’m going to play the father. It’s thrilling. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.”
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