Behind Viola Davis’ ‘Whimsical’ Yet ‘Devious’ Hunger Games Look Inspired by Willy Wonka (Exclusive)

Viola Davis joins Hunger Games universe in style.

In the upcoming origin story A ballad about songbirds and snakesthe Academy Award winner plays Dr. Volumnia Gaul, an eccentric, wacky and ruthless Gamemaker who devises experiments to make the annual Hunger Games more of a violent spectacle for Panem.

Director Francis Lawrence tells PEOPLE one point of reference provided by Davis, 58, as her character was the titular candy maker in Gene Wilder’s 1971. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

“There was this wild, quirky creativity and joy in the creativity that the character had, but with this kind of sinister underpinning,” he says of Wonka. “I have to admit, I was a little nervous to tell her that reference. But she got it right away, luckily.”

Lawrence — who calls Davis “one of the best actors of all time” — explains that Dr. Gaul “might seem like she’s kind of the villain in this, but she actually really believes in these things and thinks it’s the right thing to do.”

“It was really fun to see it come together,” he adds. “Obviously the character in the book informs that…then you get into the hair, makeup, wardrobe, all of that. And Viola put it all together and came up with this version of Dr. Gaul.”

Costume designer Trish Summerville says the inspiration for Davis’ look was something of a “Mad Scientist Willy Wonka, sort of Dr. Frankenstein” — basically a “wonderful feel” with “her dark side that’s devious.”

“She has to have that happy side that draws you in, but then at the same time she’s really scary,” says Summerville.

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Courtesy of Trish Summerville

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Songbirds and snakes is set more than 60 years before Katniss Everdeen first entered the arena. The film shows a different post-war era, right down to the clothes. As the designer says, this is a “much more conservative, orderly society” compared to the “exaggerated, excessive body modification and intense colors” of the period in previous films.

Summerville and her team made “thousands” of costumes for the film, which also stars Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman and Hunter Schafer, along with countless extras.

Not only did the job require individual designs for the main characters, but also hundreds of matching looks for the Academy and Peacekeeper uniforms.

“It was a huge undertaking,” she says.

For example: “We made school uniform buttons that are the Capitol insignia, so that’s 8,000 to 10,000 buttons that you make and cast.”

What’s more? Summerville explains, “If you’re going to have 200 or 500 students, you have to make two to three times as many costumes because you don’t know the sizes of the people; if you have 500 backgrounds [actors]you need about 2,000 pairs of shoes to do that to people.”

Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbird and the Serpent.”

Murray Close/Courtesy of Lionsgate

The designer wanted the costumes for Davis “to be a lot different than” those worn by the other characters, using “a lot of color” so that she “always stands out”.

Hair designer Nikki Gooley looked to the 1940s for inspiration and eventually found a “beautiful silver-gray afro” that “matched the character’s eccentricity and her motley”.

“Her character is very big and strong, so it made sense to have big, wiry hair. And I think it suited Viola as well,” says Gooley.

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Tom Blyth and Viola Davis in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbird and the Serpent.”

Murray Close/Lionsgate

Davis also wore special makeup to portray Dr. Gaul’s troubled past, with scars and other disfigurements from her dangerous lab experiments.

Makeup designer Sherri Berman Laurence says that Davis requested that one eye be a different color (namely a “murky” dark brown and the other a “penetrating blue”), possibly because of an experiment gone wrong. The makeup and prosthetics teams also took steps to age her and add facial scars.

“Between the hair, the bones, that eye, it really took her to a scary place,” says Laurence. “Then throw in her acting—I mean, come on. You could have heard a pin drop as she walked [on set].”

Viola Davis in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbird and the Snake.”

Murray Close/Lionsgate

Of those extraordinary “glowing latex gloves,” the costume designer says she thought Dr. Gaul was keeping her hands covered because her “hands are ruined from all the experiments she’s working on.”

I always wanted to have her hands covered in every scene, says Summerville. “And with this red and white lab coat, we washed her so it looks like she has these veins, going to the veins in the body and the blood and washing off the blood on her lab coat.”

Summerville, who also worked on the 2013 Catch fire plus movies like Gone Girl and The girl with the dragon tattoosays Davis “he just threw himself right into it and transformed.”

Courtesy of Lionsgate

“As soon as you put on her costume and hair, wig and makeup, she automatically started laughing at things she would do with her hands,” he recalls. “It’s very satisfying when you can help an actor transform into another character.”

Summerville says, “She was just so lovely and kind. You give her these tools and then she turns them into something larger than life. She’s just a cool, amazing, wonderful, warm, loving person.”

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in cinemas on 17.11.

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Source: HIS Education