Jennifer Lawrence shot down a rumour that she will appear in the forthcoming film The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
The 32-year-old actor played revolutionary Katniss Everdeen in four Hunger Games films between 2012 and 2015.
Songbirds & Snakes is a prequel, reportedly set 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games. All of the films in the popular science fiction franchise are adapted from best-selling YA novels by Suzanne Collins.
While Lawrence’s character wasn’t born at the time Songbirds & Snakes takes place, it had been rumoured online that the actor would make a small cameo appearance as Katniss Everdeen’s grandmother.
The Oscar winner was asked about the rumour during an appearance on the Bravo chat show Watch What Happens Live by presenter Andy Cohen.
“Is there any truth to the rumour you will appear in The Hunger Games prequel as Katniss’s grandmother?” He asked. “It does take place like 49 [sic] years before The Hunger Games.”
“Oh, ’cause I’m 49 in Hollywood years, huh?” Lawrence shot back.
Putting the matter to bed, she clarified: “No, that’s not true.”
None of the cast of the original Hunger Games films are expected to return for Songbirds & Snakes.
The prequel stars Tom Blyth as a young Coriolanus “Coryo” Snow and Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) as “tribute” Lucy Gray Baird. In the original Hunger Games films, Snow served as the franchise’s villain and was portrayed by Donald Sutherland.
Rachel Zegler in ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’— (Lionsgate)
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes will be released on 17 November.
Lawrence can currently be seen in the raunchy comedy No Hard Feelings.
In a three-star review of the film for The Independent, critic Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “[No Hard Feelings] certainly feels like one of the first times we’ve ever seen a film actually attempt to capture the appeal of Jennifer Lawrence, the celebrity: confident, but a little gawky. She’s the head cheerleader if she actually turned out to be nice.
“Her physical comedy is pristine, as she stomps up the front steps of a house in rollerskates, or tries to seductively scooch a couch across an office. But she’s even better when [her character] Maddie’s antics falter, and we’re shown the very lonely person behind them – a millennial existentially horrified to have reached the ‘ma’am’ age, while still feeling as vulnerable and inadequate as the Gen-Zers whose world she’s trying to infiltrate.”
No Hard Feelings is in cinemas now.
