Donald Sutherland says The Hunger Games has the potential to change everything
We've heard from Jennifer Lawrence about the hotly anticipated adaptation of Suzanne Collins's best-selling novel The Hunger Games, and now we hear from Hollywood legend Donald Sutherland who has said that it has the potential to "change everything".
Sutherland stars as Panem's President Snow in the film told Coming Soon that he was wowed by Collins and Gary Ross's screenplay when he first read it.
"This script - it came, I read it. I couldn't read it actually. I pushed it away. I sat back and I said to my wife, 'I think I just read something that can change everything'."
Sutherland reveals that he became aware of The Hunger Games as a literary phenomenon when he saw the reaction from people at his dermatologist's office explaining "I said, 'I just finished shooting Hunger Games'. I got maybe the 'm' of Hunger Games out and the office was suddenly filled with people jumping up and down in hysteria. And these are adults!"
Sutherland who is known for the likes of The Italian Job, Pride & Prejudice, The Mechanic and the film that spawned television favourite M*A*S*H added that he sees clear social parallels between The Hunger Games's story, about a teenage girl (Lawrence) who incites a revolution in a totalitarian state, and the Occupy movement explaining "This script came and it seemed to me that it was a game changer, that it had the possibility, if it were properly done, to catalyse, motivate, mobilise a generation of young people who were, in my opinion, by and large dormant in the political process.
You have Occupy Wall Street and all that, but it has a limited base or it seems to have a limited base. And I hoped and I felt that this could maybe spread out across the country."
The Hunger Games opens on March 23 and features the stellar cast of Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Wes Bentley, Isabelle Fuhrman, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci and Toby Jones.
THE HUNGER GAMES HITS CINEMAS ON MARCH 23