San Diego Comic-Con 2015’s panel for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 took us on an emotional rollercoaster. Check out the highlights below!
White-clad drummers set the mood, in time for Katniss, dressed head-to-toe in red leather, to bring us a message from District 13. Conan O’Brien, who is thus far winning Comic-Con, moderated the panel. “They ask me to tell you tweet #UNITE. I am a middle-aged man and I did not understand what I said.” They immediately showed the first full trailer (which Conan O’Brien promised to have on his phone and Internet in 40 minutes) and then, without giving anyone time to recover, began talking about how hard it was to say goodbye to the characters. Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Willow Shields, and Francis Lawrence all attended, and managed some moments of profundity in between O’Brien’s silliness and the cast’s habit of flirting with each other.
Lawrence blanked when asked about her favorite moment as Katniss, saying “Suddenly I can’t remember this whole period of my life!” but Shields suggests that volunteering as tribute might have been a big deal. Then she reflects on Prim being grown up now, and “taking care of Katniss mentally.” However, Conan was still angry that Prim tried to rescue the cat in the last movie, and yelled at Shields, “Get another cat!”
Liam Hemsworth toyed with the emotions of the audience, saying, “There’s a really emotional twist, and there may be a kiss between Josh and I.” Oh and if that image isn’t enough for you, Lawrence described the last day of the shoot: “There’s no way of saying this without starting rumors, but we all just held each other and slept like puppies.”
The cast attempts a group Mockingjay whistle, but the results sound more like The X-Files theme and/or squirrels… and then Hutcherson had to snatch Lawrence’s mic away to stop her from spoiling a key moment in the epilogue.
Conan asks if Jennifer Lawrence thinks any of Katniss rubbed off on her? “I hope some of Katniss rubbed off on me because she’s brave and I’m…an actress.” And Hutcherson actually teared up a bit as he talked about having to say goodbye to the cast, which led to this:
Which is, you guessed it: Hutcherson crying, and Hemsworth and Lawrence wiping away his tears. Because we needed to see this, after all the talk of puppies and fighting for freedom and uniting and epilogues. Lawrence ended the panel by saying, “These movies really did change my life… You guys [cast, crew] challenged me. I love you.” And now that were super emotional, we’ll show you this new preview to take some of the sting out of this being the last panel with these guys:
