Molly McCann Opens Up About Keeping Her Hunger Games Role Secret

Irish actress Molly McCann is stepping into one of the biggest roles of her young career, joining The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping as Louella McCoy. The 15-year-old told Deadline that landing the part brought excitement—and a difficult stretch of silence while she waited to share the news. “I just wanted to tell everyone,” McCann said in a video interview from her family home in Dublin, explaining that she had to keep the casting under wraps for a month. The actress already has screen credits including Bad Sisters and the 2020 film Herself, but the new production marks her most prominent project so far, according to the report. McCann plays Louella, a tribute from District 12 who is closely connected to Haymitch. The story takes place decades before Katniss Everdeen’s story and centers on the 50th Hunger Games, when the Capitol selects 48 children instead of the usual 24. Joseph Zada plays the teenage Haymitch, a resourceful boy from the same district. McCann said she and Zada drew on Suzanne Collins’ book to convey the characters’ closeness. “Haymitch and Louella have such a special bond together,” she said, adding that she felt the pair had done a good job bringing that relationship to the screen. The book’s epilogue also links Louella to a young Katniss, whom an older Haymitch recalls as resembling his former friend. McCann said people around her wondered whether she was playing a younger version of Katniss, but she clarified that she was not. The film is scheduled for a worldwide release on November 20, and its ensemble also includes Mckenna Grace, Elle Fanning, Maya Hawke, Ralph Fiennes, Jesse Plemons and Glenn Close.