Lawrence on Lawrence: Fun, funny, extremely talented

MANILA, Philippines - They have the same surname but actress Jennifer Lawrence and Hunger Games: Catching Fire director Francis Lawrence are not related.

“She’s one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with,” Francis told Conversations during the same junket. “She’s a very candid girl, fun, friendly, funny and extremely talented, so it’s fantastic to work with her every day.”

Francis had his film debut in Constantine (starring Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz), which was based on the Hellblazer comic book, followed by the 2007 Will Smith starrer I Am Legend, a science fiction-horror-action-disaster film, and then the 2011 Water for Elephants (with Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson).

He’s also a noted, Grammy-winner music video director who has directed the likes of Lady Gaga, Shakira, Jay-Z, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Lopez, Aerosmith and Janet Jackson, to mention just a few. In television, Francis served as director and executive producer on the pilot and several episodes of the Kings in 2008 and directed the pilot episode of Touch (with Kiefer Sutherland) in 2011.

Asked how the Catching Fire experience was (he didn’t direct the first Hunger Games film, based upon the best-seller trilogy by Suzanne Collins), Francis said, “It was great! Good actors, good material and lots of fun to film.”

Catching Fire is overwhelming and will surely leave the audience catching maybe not fire but for breath from beginning to end, so what would he consider to be the most difficult scene to shoot?

“Every scene,” said Francis. “Every scene was difficult to do because most of them were very technical. There are a lot of scenes involving livewire, visual effects and, you know, a lot of fights especially those shot in the jungle. All that was pretty tough.”

The book is long (with the third installment already shot but will be divided into two parts, one to be released in 2014 and the final one in 2015). How was the challenge translating it into a movie that runs for two hours and 26 minutes?

“It’s always a little complex,” Francis admitted. “It’s a very visual and a very cinematic book and there’s always gonna be some loss once it’s made into film. It’s a matter of choosing the things that we love about the book.”

(Produced by Lionsgate, Hunger Games: Catching Fire will be released locally by Pioneer Films nationwide starting on Thursday, Nov. 21.)