Jennifer Lawrence confirmed her return as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping during an appearance on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast. The film opens November 20.
For most of this year, Lawrence was evasive. In January, on Josh Horowitz’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, she avoided the question. On Tuesday she stopped avoiding it. Josh Hutcherson, who played Peeta Mellark across the four original films, is also back. So is Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy.
Joseph Zada plays Haymitch for most of Sunrise on the Reaping. The film adapts Suzanne Collins’ novel of the same name. Set 24 years before the original Hunger Games, it follows Haymitch through the 50th Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta appear in a present-day epilogue framing the story.
Lawrence described the reunion as emotional. “Josh and I, like, didn’t walk to the bathroom without our arms around each other,” she told Cooper. “It was so beautiful.” She noted the production reunited the same crew, camera operators, and assistant director from her earlier work on the franchise.
Reports of her return and Hutcherson’s first emerged in December 2025, according to The Wrap. Neither confirmed them until now.
