The Hunger Games movies are wildly successful book to screen adaptations, one that returned to theaters thanks to the spinoff The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. That prequel focused on the 10th annual games, and featured a young Coriolanus Snow, played by actor Tom Blyth. He shared the screen with Rachel Zegler’s Lucy Gray, and recently addressed the backlash that his co-star often gets online.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes did well at the box office, bringing Panem back to the big screen in the process. Rachel Zegler’s comments about Snow White landed her in hot water, and she’s gotten a ton of hate online over the last year. While speaking with The Independent, Blyth spoke about seeing the discourse surrounding his co-star, stating:
It’s just such a harsh world out there, especially for a young woman doing what we do. She takes it on the chin like a champ. To see her kind of put her middle finger up by just doing really good work … People can’t deny her talent. I’m proud of her.
How sweet is that? As someone who knows and worked with Zegler personally, Blyth has a different perspective on the 24 year-old actress. Rather than jumping on the bandwagon, he’s proud of the way she’s stayed true to herself amidst all the chatter attacking her character. And as he said, you just can’t deny the Y2K actress’ talents.
At just 24 Zegler has already proven herself as a star of the stage and screen. After becoming a household name thanks to Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (which is streaming with a Disney+ subscription), she’s taken roles in a variety of film genres. And she recently starred as the title character in the West End revival of Evita, which might end up moving across the pond to Broadway.
For her part, Zegler has spoken about the backlash she’s gotten, over both her political opinions as well as the viral comments she made about Snow White. While she admits some of the chatter has been “alarming”, she’s still standing in her truth and using her platform as a celebrity for causes that are dear to her. Even if that means she gets some hate on social media.
Despite the online hate that Zegler has received, her career continues to thrive. She immediately sold out her West End concerts after closing Evita, and there are rumors she’ll play the role of Eva Perón on Broadway. This comes after her Broadway debut in Romeo and Juliet opposite Kit Connor. At the time of writing this story she doesn’t have any upcoming moves lined, up but Hunger Games fans are hoping she returns as Lucy Gray Baird sometime in the future.
The Hunger Games franchise will once again return to theaters when Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters November 20th of next year as part of the 2026 movie release list. Whether or not Songbirds and Snakes get a sequel remains to be seen, but it sounds like Blyth would be happy to work with Zegler again.