Jason Schwartzman tells THR how he wanted to work with Director Francis Lawrence on 'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes', and the creative freedom he was allowed for his character. Plus he shares the special moment he shared with his daughter and Olivia Rodrigo.
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00:00 You told me you just introduced your daughter to Olivia Rodrigo who's here tonight.
00:02 How did that go?
00:03 Olivia Rodrigo is so cool to my daughter.
00:07 I can't even tell you.
00:08 I took a picture with her and it was a special moment because her music means an awful lot
00:13 to a lot of people, my daughter and her friend Jordan included.
00:17 And so right now they're over there.
00:20 From a distance you would think something was very wrong because it's a lot of tears.
00:25 But as you get closer you realize they are tears of joy.
00:30 She has an amazing song in this movie.
00:31 For you, what made you want to join this film and take on this role and become part of this
00:35 universe?
00:36 Well, I love the movies.
00:38 But I love the story.
00:40 I love everything about it.
00:42 But really I wanted to work with Francis Lawrence.
00:45 And I wanted to work in this way, which was that he basically had this idea that for my
00:51 character he said, "Why don't we just work up a bunch of material and you'll have freedom
00:59 to come up with it and then each day we'll pick and choose what works."
01:05 And so Michael Leslie, the writer, and I, we got to sit down for like a month and we
01:10 wrote pages and pages of material.
01:13 It was so silly and so we were punch-drunk.
01:16 We were just so tired just generating all these.
01:19 But it was so fun to do it and then present it to Francis.
01:21 I've never worked in that way before.
01:23 And then because he knows this world so, this is his world, he would look at the things
01:30 and he'd pick and choose what he needed.
01:32 It was just so cool to watch him do that because it's like, "Yes, of course.
01:36 Of course that's the right thing to choose."
01:38 And of course that's the...
01:39 He just, you know, it's just neat to present something to someone and then that you watch
01:44 them make all the other movies and present something that you've made to someone and
01:47 have him kind of pick all the things.
01:49 It was just, it was such a...
01:50 It was amazing.
01:51 What's one line or scene you're especially excited for fans to see in this movie that
01:56 you came up with?
01:57 Oh, geez.
01:59 I don't know.
02:00 I haven't seen the movie yet.
02:01 I'm so nervous.
02:02 It's my first time.
02:03 Who knows?
02:04 I mean, I don't know.
02:05 I said a lot of really silly stuff.
02:06 I love...
02:07 I hope it's not too offensive.
02:10 I love your performance in this movie and as a fan of the original movies, it's so wild
02:15 to see just how much your character even looks like Stanley Tucci.
02:19 For you, what did that kind of fan response mean when people were like, "Oh, wow.
02:22 You really look like you could be part of the Flickerman family."
02:25 Great.
02:26 Well, that's good for me because I love Stanley Tucci.
02:27 And when I saw the first one, I thought to myself, "Stanley Tucci in this movie is a
02:34 godsend and I want to be in a part like this."
02:38 I literally was just like the biggest fan of it and I held it...
02:42 In my mind, that's the epitome of just a great performance and a great world and a great...
02:50 To be able to now be an ancestor, it's pretty heavy.
02:54 Have you spoken to him at all?
02:56 Never.
02:57 Here's how much I love him.
02:59 He made a movie called The Big Night.
03:01 I don't know if you know this movie.
03:03 He wrote and directed this movie with...
03:06 Maybe Campbell Scott.
03:08 This movie, it's an incredible movie and it centers around an Italian family cooking this
03:13 one big last meal for this person.
03:16 This meal in this movie, I love so much.
03:19 We modeled our wedding meal off of his movie, The Big Night.
03:25 It feels...
03:26 That cookbook.
03:27 It feels meant to be that you played this part.
03:30 I'm not saying...
03:31 I could have...
03:32 Maybe I willed it.
03:33 Manifested it?
03:34 I could have.
03:35 I could have been like, "A lot of algorithms going off.
03:39 He bought The Big Night cookbook.
03:42 These things happen."
03:43 Yeah, I'm excited.
03:46 Of course, the strike is now over.
03:48 How does that feel?
03:49 Good.
03:50 I'm just happy for everybody to be able to get back to work.
03:56 It's been a long time.
03:57 There's a lot of great people who need to work.
03:59 What's your schedule looking like going forward now that you can get back to work?
04:03 I don't know yet.
04:07 Just a couple things.
04:10 Anything you can tease or not yet?
04:12 I can't.
04:13 I can't.
04:14 But I am excited about one thing.
04:15 I can't.
04:16 Sorry.
04:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]