Elizabeth Banks appeared on Bustle’s podcast One Nightstand to promote her new Peacock series, The Miniature Wife, and slam white women who voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Although the actor can’t understand how he could make that decision, he reminded me of the character Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games, sharing his desire for those who voted for President Trump to abandon fascism.
“Effie, to me, is one of the characters with the greatest arc that I’ve ever played, because obviously she’s supporting this fascist regime that she’s benefiting from, and when they try to bring Katniss and Peta into the game again, until she really starts to care and realize how unfair it is…” Banks explained.
“In ‘Catching Fire,’ you really see her struggle when she says, ‘I want to be a part of this team,’ and by the end she’s like a revolutionary. I wish more people were revolutionaries!” she added. “Folks, Effie is a model! I don’t understand the 53% of white women who didn’t vote for Kamala.”
Banks played Effie in the Hunger Games film series and appeared in all four films: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part 1, and Mockingjay Part 2. The film was released from 2012 to 2015.
“My husband and I were looking for film rights for some YA books,” Banks tells Bustle of how she ended up starring in the series opposite Jennifer Lawrence. “I read the first one as soon as it came out. I think it was because I was reading ‘The Maze Runner’ and thought, ‘I’m so obsessed with this world, I want to find another world.'”
Banks wanted to be a part of “The Hunger Games” as a producer, and after reading the first book, “I immediately looked for the rights,” but “they had already sold, and Nina Jacobson…I thought, “Okay, okay! But I love these books.”” So when The Hunger Games was being planned as a movie series, I jumped on board right away because I love this world. ”
Effie is set to return to screens this fall in the prequel film, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Elle Fanning took over the role, with Banks saying, “I think she’s perfect…I think she plays the wide-eyed idealism of being taken in by Snow…”
Banks previously told Variety that Fanning was “perfect casting,” adding, “I’ve always said that. The fans loved it and wanted it, so I was really happy.”
Watch Banks’ full interview with Bustle in the video below.
