Jennifer Lawrence is back as Katniss: Hunger Games reunion with Hutcherson confirmed

Dubai: It is official. Jennifer Lawrence is back as Katniss Everdeen.

The Oscar winner confirmed her return to The Hunger Games franchise on Wednesday's episode of Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast, revealing that she has reunited with Josh Hutcherson and Woody Harrelson for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.

It is the first time the trio have filmed together since the franchise's final instalment, Mockingjay Part 2, was released in 2015.

Rumours of a Katniss return have been circulating for months. In January, Lawrence teased fans on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast. When Horowitz suggested she reconnect with the film's director, she replied, "Maybe we already have," Gulf News reported at the time.

This time, there was no dodging the question.

Lawrence described stepping back into the franchise as unbelievable. "It was so crazy because it was the same crew," she said, according to ABC News. "It was the same camera guys, the same AD who I've worked with a million times too 'cause I love him."

Reuniting with her co-stars was just as moving. "And Josh and Woody, and like, it was so emotional," she told Cooper.

"Josh and I, like, didn't walk to the bathroom without our arms around each other," she added, as quoted by TheWrap. "It was so beautiful."

Harrelson, she said, made his own entrance. "And Woody obviously came through the window of my hotel room uninvited," she joked.

Sunrise on the Reaping is set 24 years before the original trilogy, so Katniss is not part of the main story.

Based on Suzanne Collins' 2025 novel of the same name, the film follows a 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy as he is forced into the 50th Hunger Games, the second Quarter Quell.

The book ends with a present-day epilogue, in which an older Haymitch talks to Katniss and Peeta about his past. That is where Lawrence, Hutcherson and Harrelson are expected to appear. Lionsgate has not said how much screen time they will have.

For most of the film, Haymitch is played by Joseph Zada.

The film is directed by Francis Lawrence, who has directed every Hunger Games film since Catching Fire in 2013, from a screenplay by Billy Ray.

The ensemble includes Ralph Fiennes as President Snow, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket and Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, along with Whitney Peak, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Maya Hawke, Billy Porter, Glenn Close and Kieran Culkin.

It arrives in cinemas on November 20.

Lawrence also used the interview to talk about safety on set, recalling an incident on an unnamed production while she was filming a nude scene.

"There was an instance on set where crew members who were not approved when I was doing nudity were on set," she said, according to Variety. She did not link the incident to The Hunger Games.

She explained that she came down hard on it because of the example it would set. If established actors did not enforce the rules, she said, an unknown 18-year-old in the same position would have to choose between speaking up and getting a reputation for being difficult, or staying quiet.

"It was important to me to explain that to the people why that was not OK," she said.

Lawrence was 21 when the first Hunger Games film was released in 2012.