I’ll never forget my first time seeing The Hunger Games in theaters. I was 16, the exact same age Katniss Everdeen is in the dystopian thriller. And while I wasn’t thinking about it too much at the time, in 2012 it was rare to see a young woman lead a massive action film and feel as human as Jennifer Lawrence made her. But Maya Hawke just talked about it ahead of her Hunger Games debut on the 2026 movie calendar, and I’m so happy she did.
Hawke is best known for voicing Anxiety in Inside Out 2 and playing Robin in Stranger Things – a role that actually makes her more famous than her dad, Ethan Hawke, in some circles. Here’s what she had to say about her personal connection to the book-to-movie adaptations as we get ready to see her in Sunrise on the Reaping:
