Nick Benson talks about the “terrifying” research he did to prep for The Hunger Games prequel.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is currently available to buy on digital, and the prequel film will be available on physical media next week. The movie is based on Suzanne Collins’ book of the same name, and like any adaptation, the film has some differences from the book. In honor of the movie’s upcoming physical media release, ComicBook.com had a chat with Nick Benson, who plays Jessup. Jessup is the boy tribute from District 12, but his fate is sealed before the Hunger Games when he’s bitten and infected with rabies. In the book, Jessup is bitten by a raccoon, but it’s a bat that gets him in the film. While chatting with Benson, we asked about the book changes and the research that went into playing someone who has rabies.
“I just rolled with it for the most part because I did notice the change and I’m like, ‘Okay, cool. We can work with that.’ Because it still keeps the general same arc of the character,” Benson explained. “I just was like, ‘Okay, little tweak,’ but again, same general arc and not much different other than that. It was just a little clock in my mind.”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t get powers,” Benson joked about his character’s bat bite. “I definitely did a lot of research, because once I figured out what was going on, I was like, ‘Oh, rabies, that’s kind of gnarly.’ So I did a deep YouTube dive on a bunch of people who had rabies. I would not recommend doing it. It’s kind of scarring.”
“It’s really terrifying,” he continued. “If you’re already scared of it, it’ll make you even more scared. I’ll tell you that right now. I just watched a lot of YouTube videos and looked up online exactly how it affects the brain and how it progresses through your body, all that stuff. And while it did scare me, it definitely did help me embody it so I could do it for the character.”
When Is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Coming To DVD?
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is currently available to buy on digital, and Lionsgate will be releasing the new film on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on February 13th. You can read a description of the film below:
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) as he sees a chance for a change in fortune when he is chosen to be a mentor to Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), the girl tribute from the impoverished District 12. In addition to Blyth and Zegler, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to feature big names such as Viola Davis (Head Gamemaker Volumnia Gaul), Peter Dinklage (Casca Highbottom), Jason Schwartzman (Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman), Hunter Schafer (Tigris Snow), and Josh Andrés Rivera (Sejanus Plinth).
Stay tuned for more from our interviews with the cast of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
