The two have known each other prior to The Hunger Games' fame, and they chat about funny stories, filming, and her very sensible ideas on handling The Hunger Games success. Here are some highlights:
A mutual friend of ours from college once asked us what skills would keep us alive in a dystopian world–a question, incidentally, unrelated to California native Brooke’s big break in the movie–and her first answer was “brute strength.” (Mine was “running fast.”) She does tend to stomp into places like a very pretty, large-faced in the best way, bull in a china shop. She rushed breathlessly up to me in the sports bar we were meeting as if she was late, which she was not, and gave me a huge hug. She had taken the subway from Red Hook, where she had just interviewed for a restaurant job.
“Those interviews are hard. It’s hard to be like–” She puts on crazy-solemn eyes. “Yes. I take this very seriously.’”
It seems incongruous that an actress in the top-grossing movie in the country for four weeks straight, someone who can make an informed personal judgment of Lenny Kravitz as a human being (verdict: “The coolest person of all the big famous people”) would be running around Brooklyn trying to get a waitressing gig. Less than a month ago, she was walking the red carpet at The Hunger Games’ Los Angeles premiere alongside a star-studded cast that included Jennifer Lawrence, Woody Harrelson, Kravitz, Josh Hutcherson and Elizabeth Banks. Last week The New York Daily News ran an article about Brooke that commented on this duality, with quotes from a Ditmas Park family whose kids she watches. The kids, understandably, are psyched: “Our babysitter is in The Hunger Games!”
“It’s weird. I mean, you aren’t immune from awareness about status, but you can’t let that get to you. Especially me, I mean, I have such minimal exposure. I’m not famous.”
She also found the vibe of working on a big-budget movie surprisingly familiar. “I expected it to feel more controlled. People think it’s a shiny adventure [to make movies], but it’s so messy. No matter how much money’s involved, it’s just people fighting to get things done in time, just like it is in little indie stuff.”
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