NEWSOK! Exclusive: Cody Christian and Maiara Walsh on The Hunger Games Spoof, "Vicious" PLL Fans and More
Fans are gearing up for the release of Catching Fire in 2 weeks, but we only have to wait one more day to see The Hunger Games spoof movie, The Starving Games! This was inevitable, right? And OKMagazine.com chatted with Maiara Walsh and Pretty Little Liars' Cody Christian, who play Katniss and Peeta in the movie, to talk about the film, what they'd say if they met Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, their most awkward scene to film (hint: it's a sex scene and we've got the exclusive clip below!), and how PLL fans would react if that show was spoofed in the movie. Keep reading!
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OK!: How did this movie come about for you guys?
Cody Christian: I didn’t know what it was at the time, I just kind of went in for the audition and I had the reading and the reading went very very well. So then they called me back and said "hey we want to bring you in for a chemistry read with someone we are interested in, which was Maiara."
Maiara Walsh: I came back from Europe and had this audition for The Starving Games. I loved The Hunger Games, I read all the books and totally wanted to be Katniss Everdeen back before they even made the movie so I was like oh this is going to be fun. I think I went in like 3 or 4 times and then they let me know that I got the part and that I was going to be going to Louisiana and I was really excited because I’d never been to New Orleans.
CC: You left out the part that we had a chemistry read which was amazing, and our connection started from there! She forgot that part.
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OK!: I can imagine being on a set like this is always hilarious. But what was the scene that was really hard for you guys to get through because you couldn't stop laughing?
CC: (laughter) The hardest one for me, I don’t know about you, but the hardest one for me was remember when we were in the cave with the two troll guys.
MW: Yes the cave scene, the infamous cave scene.
CC: Anything in that cave was extremely difficult to get through. We managed, we did it.
MW: We had this ridiculous sex scene in this cave. It was the most unsexy thing you could possibly think of, and we are rolling around in dirt and we are laughing so hard I literally had to hide my head behind Cody and my body is just like shaking on top of him. The directors were like ‘you don’t laugh when you are taking off a man’s pants!’ I was like I’m sorry, I can’t do this.
CC: It was brutal, it was tough. When we got done we were just standing there like shame on our face, covered in dirt and mud, just standing there and no one wanted to make eye contact with us. They just brought up towels and were like here, go clean yourself up.
Editor's Note: Here's the cave scene they're talking about. This is exclusive to OKMagazine.com—you saw it here first, kids!
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OK!: What would you say to Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson if you actually met them? The real Katniss and Peeta?
CC: (laughs) If I could sit down for like a lunch with myself and Maiara across from Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, like I don’t even know how that would go down. I would order a cup of coffee and just make eye contact and try to make it as least awkward as possible. Be like touche man, great performance. I don’t know.
MW: I think it would actually be weirder being on the other side of it, having a movie spoofed of you, what that would be like? For us I would just like make a joke of it you know. What was it like to shoot the real thing? Like, what do you even say in that situation.
CC: I’m just going to avoid any confrontation with those two.
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OK!: There are tons of pop culture references aside from The Hunger Games in the movie. Which reference was your favorite?
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MW: I personally liked Avatar the best, but because I had to be in 5 hours of makeup for it. It was like this alcohol based blue paint, I was literally in this trailer for five hours and I was completely blue by the end of it. That to me was fun and it made me think of Jim Carrey and the Grinch.
CC: For me, we spoofed The Expendables and the Avengers and I loved it so much because the lookalikes that these guys cast and brought on the set were hands down amazing. I was on set and I was dying watching these guys perfom, it was incredible, it was literally like they peeled these guys out of the expendables set and slapped them in a huge meadow field in Louisiana and they were shooting a spoof scene.
OK!: There are definitely a few amazing pop culture things that are missing from this movie, though. Like Miley Cyrus' twerking...
CC: A complaint throughout all spoofs is that the pop culture references seem outdated and they are just not funny. But you have to understand that a year and a half ago when this was in pre-production and they were writing it, these references were hilarious.
MM: You shoot it a year before the film actually comes out, so that is a full year that we are missing out on current pop culture references.
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OK!: What TV show would you have loved to have seen spoofed in this film?
CC: Dude, could you imagine a Walking Dead or, Breaking Bad, no I don’t think Breaking Bad. What about a zombie Walking Dead spoof? I would watch that.
MW: That would be fun.
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OK!: Cody, do you think they would ever do a Pretty Little Liars spoof in a movie like this?
CC: I think they’d upset a lot of people. I don’t think the specific demographic could take a joke like that.It would be interesting if they did, I think it’d be funny, I would be down with it. But like I said I don’t know if too many people would be happy about that idea. Our fan base is gnarly. They are vicious!
OK!: But Hunger Games fans are crazy too! How do you think they'll react to this spoof?
MW: Hate it or love it. At the end of the day it is a spoof and we are here to have fun and to not take ourselves so seriously in an industry that takes itself so seriously. So I think it is good to bring in some comedy when things can get so dramatic and so serious.
CC: Yeah of course, this is a movie you sit back and laugh at. The guys Jason and Aaron, they don’t claim to be these critically acclaimed filmmakers making a movie worthy of an Oscar. They know what their goal is and they know what their demographic is and they know what their target audience is. They go in there and make movies that people can laugh at and have fun with and that is ultimately the goal with this.
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Starving Games is out in select theaters and VOD tomorrow, November 8! Are you excited to see The Starving Games? What do you think of Cody and Maiara playing Peeta and Katniss? Tweet us @OKMagazine.
