I’ll never forget my first time seeing The Hunger Games in theaters. I was 16, the exact same age Katniss Everdeen is in the dystopian thriller. And while I wasn’t thinking about it too much at the time, in 2012 it was rare to see a young woman lead a massive action film and feel as human as Jennifer Lawrence made her. But Maya Hawke just talked about it ahead of her Hunger Games debut on the 2026 movie calendar, and I’m so happy she did.
Hawke is best known for voicing Anxiety in Inside Out 2 and playing Robin in Stranger Things – a role that actually makes her more famous than her dad, Ethan Hawke, in some circles. Here’s what she had to say about her personal connection to the book-to-movie adaptations as we get ready to see her in Sunrise on the Reaping:
I credit the original Hunger Games movie a lot with inspiring me to want to be an actor, honestly.
In a new interview with People, Hawke had high praise for the franchise. As she added regarding Jennifer Lawrence’s performance specifically:
It’s so hard to give a good performance in a big action movie [because] so many pieces in the machine are usually working against the capacity to give a good performance… In those movies, she gave a performance so singularly excellent and weird, and she painted a true individual that was not at all neutralized by the genre.
This is so true. JLaw’s role as Katniss Everdeen really raised the bar for what heroines could be in big movies, and it was really inspiring to a young Maya Hawke. The actress is just two years younger than me, so she must have had a similar experience seeing those movies come out from 2012 to 2015 and watching how they changed the game for what could be possible.
I find it interesting to hear this from Maya Hawke considering her mom is Uma Thurman, who’s an action legend in her own right. Thurman flexed some major action hero chops in the likes of Kill Bill and Batman & Robin, but one could certainly argue those roles were more reflective of the 1990s and 2000s, and The Hunger Games offered something new to the genre.
While Maya Hawke admitted her role as Wiress in Sunrise on the Reaping is “very small”, getting to be in the new Hunger Games has to be a cool full-circle moment for her. She said she loves her role as Wiress, and she’s very “excited to get to see the movie and to be a fan.” Plus, Hawke had the chance to work with director Francis Lawrence, who also helmed Catching Fire, both Mockingjay movies, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes as well.
Oh, and if the report that JLaw and Josh Hutcherson are in Sunrise on the Reaping is true, Hawke and Lawrence might even be in the same Hunger Games movie. We’ll find out once the new movie comes out on November 20. Until then, you can watch all the Hunger Games movies with a Netflix subscription starting July 15 and revisit them in theaters this September.