Lawrence says she reunited with Josh Hutcherson and Woody Harrelson, and the prequel opens in theaters on Nov. 20.
Jennifer Lawrence has confirmed she is returning as Katniss Everdeen in Sunrise on the Reaping, the Hunger Games prequel. She made the confirmation on the Oct. 28 episode of Call Her Daddy, when host Alex Cooper asked her about returning to the franchise. Lawrence also said she reunited with her former co-stars Josh Hutcherson, who played Peeta Mellark, and Woody Harrelson, who played Haymitch Abernathy in the original films.
"It was unbelievable," Lawrence said about reprising Katniss. "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 the reunion with Hutcherson and Harrelson was emotional, and she gave an example:
"Josh and I didn't walk to the bathroom without our arms around each other. It was so beautiful."
"Woody, obviously, came through the window of my hotel room, uninvited," Lawrence said. "It wouldn't be the same if he listened to boundaries and used a door."
Harrelson will also be back for the film, Lawrence noted. For most of it, though, Haymitch is played by Joseph Zada, 21, who plays the young version of the character. Ralph Fiennes plays President Snow.
The film is set 24 years before the original film. It follows 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy from District 12 into the 50th Hunger Games, in which twice as many tributes are forced to fight to the death. Collins's novel of the same title also contains an epilogue set in the present day, in which Haymitch has a conversation with both Katniss and Peeta about his earlier life.
The return was first reported in December 2025, though it was not disclosed at the time whether the pair would play their old characters. In January, on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, Lawrence was coy. When Horowitz suggested she chat with the film's director, Francis Lawrence, she replied, "Maybe we already have."
Hutcherson was asked about a return in an August 2025 interview with Brit + Co, and said it would be "cool" to make his return as Peeta.
Lawrence told Variety in 2023, while promoting No Hard Feelings, that she was "totally" open to reprising the role. "If Katniss ever could ever come back into my life, 100 percent," she added at the time. When she was 20 and weighing the franchise, she said on the podcast: "What made me nervous was how it could negatively affect my acting career and my personal life."
Lawrence headlined four Hunger Games films between 2012 and 2015. Across all its films, the series has brought in $3.3 billion in worldwide ticket sales so far.
Sunrise on the Reaping opens in theaters on Nov. 20.
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