Jennifer Lawrence’s Introduction To New ‘Hunger Games’ Star Rachel Zegler Involved A Joke About Strangling

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is the fifth (and arguably best) Hunger Games movie, but first without Jennifer Lawrence. Instead of Katniss Everdeen, the prequel follows Lucy Gray Baird, played by West Side Story breakout (and big-time Taylor Swift fan) Rachel Zegler. She met Lawrence for the first time a couple of weeks ago at Paris Fashion Week, where the Oscar winner threatened to strangle her.

Lawrence was kidding, of course… Or maybe that’s what she wants Zegler to think? You gotta do what you gotta do to win the Hunger Games.

“We were at Paris Fashion Week for the Dior show only a couple weeks ago. I didn’t want to be weird. I was just kind of psyching myself up to talk to her. She was so unbelievably kind,” Zegler said during a recent episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show. While she was talking, the episode showed a clip of the two of them laughing at the event. “In that clip, [Jennifer is] actually saying, ‘Let’s do another photo where I’m strangling you and saying you’ll never take my part!’ And that’s exactly what I wanted from her,” Zegler said.

You can watch The Kelly Clarkson Show clip above.

(Via Variety)