Jennifer Lawrence Confirms Katniss Return in Hunger Games Prequel After 11 Years
Jennifer Lawrence has confirmed she will return as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, telling Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper that stepping back into the role was “unbelievable”, Radio Times reported on 28 October.
“It was so crazy because it was the same crew,” Lawrence said, according to Radio Times. “It was the same camera guys, the same AD who I’ve worked with a million times too, because I love him, and Josh and Woody, and it was so emotional.” Parade reported the same account, quoting Lawrence as saying she and Josh Hutcherson “didn’t walk to the bathroom without our arms around each other”, and calling the experience “so beautiful”. She also shared a joking anecdote about Woody Harrelson arriving through the window of her hotel room uninvited, Radio Times reported.
A return kept under wraps
Lawrence’s return had been rumoured but not officially confirmed, KTBB reported, while Radio Times reported that speculation had swirled since the release of Suzanne Collins’s novel in 2025. CBR reported that Lawrence’s confirmation came almost a year after her return was first reported. According to Radio Times, Lawrence also said Hutcherson and Harrelson would return alongside her, as Peeta Mellark and Haymitch Abernathy respectively, and that her appearance would be a cameo in a flash-forward.
Lawrence first played Katniss in The Hunger Games in 2012, when she was 20, Radio Times reported, and went on to play the character in four films, ending with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 in 2015, Times Now reported. Parade put the gap at just over a decade since she last appeared in the role.
What the prequel covers
Sunrise on the Reaping is set 24 years before the events of the original story, Radio Times reported, and follows a teenage Haymitch Abernathy, played by Joseph Zada, as he is chosen to take part in the 50th annual Hunger Games. Pinkvilla reported that the 50th Games, known as the Second Quarter Quell, featured twice the usual number of tributes. Radio Times reported that President Snow, played by Ralph Fiennes, decreed the doubled tribute count.
KTBB reported that the film also stars Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, Jesse Plemons, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Maya Hawke, Elle Fanning, Glenn Close, Billy Porter and Kieran Culkin, and that Francis Lawrence returns as director, according to Particle. The film is scheduled to arrive in cinemas on 20 November 2026, KTBB reported.
Sources: Radio Times, Parade, CBR, KTBB, Pinkvilla, Times Now and Particle, 28 October 2026.