‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ Reunites Jennifer Lawrence With Woody Harrelson: ‘So Emotional’

Being back on set as Katniss Everdeen for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hit Jennifer Lawrence with a wave of nostalgia. For the first time in over a decade, Lawrence fell back into step alongside Josh Hutcherson and Woody Harrelson, the actress detailed during a recent appearance on the podcast Call Her Daddy.

“It was so crazy. It was the same crew. It was the same AD, who I’ve worked with a million times because I love him,” Lawrence said. “And with Josh and Woody … it was so emotional. Josh and I didn’t walk to the bathroom without our arms around each other. It was so beautiful.”

Last year, it was widely reported that Lawrence would reprise her role for Sunrise on the Reaping, the sixth film in the Hunger Games franchise, set for release on Nov. 20, with Hutcherson also returning as Peeta Mellark. What wasn’t noted at the time, however, was Harrelson’s participation in the film, which centers on the origin story of his character, Haymitch Abernathy.

“And Woody, obviously, came through the window of my hotel room uninvited,” Lawrence said. “It wouldn’t be the same if he listened to boundaries or used a door.”

Harrelson’s voice appeared in an early teaser for Sunrise on the Reaping, in which the official film logo was revealed. “I think these games are going to be different,” he said in the preview. Fans speculated the actor might return as a narrator in the film. The 21-year-old actor Joseph Zada leads Sunrise on the Reaping as Abernathy alongisde Mckenna Grace, who plays Maysilee Donner.

“Nobody can be Woody Harrelson but Woody Harrelson,” Nina Jacobson, who produces the Hunger Games franchise, told Variety last year. “But you have to find that mischief that he has in him inherently and try to understand, if you turn back time from the man you meet at the beginning of The Hunger Games, who he was before all of that, and why he became that.”

Zada hadn’t heard from Harrelson directly following his casting, but did receive a message from the actor’s niece. “He doesn’t have a phone,” he told Vanity Fair. “I’m sure I’ll speak to him eventually, but apparently he’s very happy for me.”