Why Donald Sutherland absolutely wanted to play President Snow in The Hunger Games

“Power corrupts, and in many cases, absolute power can really get you dirty. Look at Clinton, Chirac, Mao, Mitterrand…”
Here is a translation of the letter sent by the actor to director Gary Ross to join the saga.

The disappearance of Donald Sutherland saddens moviegoers, as the Canadian actor left his mark on the public with his daring roles from the 1960s to the 1990s, Twelve Bastards has JFK Passing by MASH, Casanova Or The Invasion of the Defilers. For the younger generation, he will also remain associated with the dictator character at the heart of the saga Hunger GamesPresident Coriolanus Snow.

The great Donald Sutherland is dead

In 2014, when the third opus of the saga was released in cinemas, Sutherland detailed in GQ never having auditioned for this role: it was by sending a long letter to the director of the first part, Gary Rossthat he convinced him to hire him.

“No one asked me to do it, he said. In fact, it was never offered to me. I like reading screenplays and this one fascinated me, so I wrote them a letter. This role of president was very small at the start, he had one line of dialogue in the script. Maybe two. It shouldn’t make any difference. I thought this film would be very important and that I wanted to be part of it. I told myself that it could wake up voters, all these citizens who seemed to have been dormant since the 1970s. I hadn’t even read the books. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know they existed, but they showed my letter to the director, Gary Ross, and he thought it would be a good idea to hire me. He then wrote these wonderful, poetic scenes in the rose garden, and they explored more of the mind of Coriolanus Snow.”

Hunger Games: “The new generation feels they must fight for survival”

Two years earlier, this same letter was already revealed to English-speaking fans of Hunger Games, within the DVD bonuses of the first opus. A supplement entitled Letters from the Rose Garden. We translate it below, as well as the director’s reaction, also broadcast in these supplements:

“It’s typically the kind of relationship you dream of having between an actor and his director, this type of exchange. With Donald, it was a real collaboration: one person suggests things, the other accepts them, extrapolates, transforms them, submits his own proposals to the actor before he shoots his scene… This is how the making of a film is done for the best.”

Here is the letter from Donald Sutherland, an actor committed against war throughout his life, particularly against the Vietnam conflict.

Hunger Games: the reasons for success

“Dear Gary Ross.

The power. What is this ? Is not it ? Power and all these forces that are manipulated by these powerful men, by these bureaucracies that try to maintain control and always maintain this power?

Power perpetuates war and oppression, it keeps this bureaucratic weight in place, it drowns itself in the pages of history (except in Texas), and leaves us lessons on what should be remembered and what should not.

Power corrupts, and in many cases, absolute power can actually get you dirty. See Clinton, Chirac, Mao, Mitterrand.

I don’t know if the same is true with Coriolanus Snow. Her obsession, her passion, her rose garden… You know that there is a rose called Sterling Silver, which has the color of lilacs and this extraordinary perfume – truly incredible – I loved it in the 1970s when it was created. Since then, botanists have developed it in multiple forms.

I didn’t want to write to you before having read the whole trilogy, and now that it’s done: roses are of great importance. In the eyes of Coriolanus. And in his smile. These three elements are vibrant, vital to Snow. Everything else he contains while remaining perfectly calm. What a sight Katniss gives him. He knows her so perfectly. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that could surprise him. He sees everything, and he understands everything. He is a man who was probably brilliant, but who succumbed to the lure of power.“

(…)

“How could you dramatize Katniss’s narrative journey, everything that happens in her head and which continuously describes the evolution of her relationship with Snow? With this omniscient side, he knows her so well. But she also, she knows what he thinks, and she understands that he will do anything to maintain his power, she feels how threatening he is, and how fragile this control is, too. She is more dangerous than Jeanne D’. Bow.

Her inner monologue is truly what defines Snow. It’s the grand tour of plays. You can not ‘play’ a king, you need all these characters around to tell the audience things like: ‘Here is the king, look how hard he works, how evil he is, how charming he is, how he loves his people, how much he makes them suffer, how brilliant he is!’ The idea of ​​the king, his definition, the public’s perception of him, all of this is instilled by the observations of other characters. Once this idea is established, it remains in the mind of the viewer. And in Snow’s case, that definition comes from Katniss.”

(…)

“Evil is seen through the story we tell. It’s not just what we see, it’s also what we are asked to believe. It’s as simple as that. Watch Ted Bundy’s face before knowing all the crimes he committed, and look at it again after knowing about them.

Snow doesn’t look bad in the eyes of the Capitol. Bundy didn’t look monstrous from these girls’ perspective. My wife and I were on vacation in Colorado when he escaped from prison. The radio was on repeat about him: ‘Don’t pick up any young man hitchhiking. This escapee seems like the sweetest young man in the world.’ Snow’s curse takes shape in her constant confidence, this element is always present in her gaze. In its absolute calm, too. Have you seen this film I made a few years ago? The gun in sight (nineteen eighty one). This character had this thing that I see in Snow.

I remember this woman who lived across the street from us in Brentwood, who came and called out to my wife when she was taking our children to school. Her husband and I had seen this movie the night before and she wanted to know how my wife could stay with a man like me, someone who was capable of playing such an evil being. It amused me, I told it during a few dinners, but it had an impact on my wife.

I would like to talk about all this with you, whenever you want, so that we are on the same wavelength.

All these men ended up the same way. Welcome to Florida, have a good stay!”

Festival Lumière 2019: Donald Sutherland in masterclass