See Rachel Zegler Sing Live on Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Set: 'She Brought It Every Time' (Exclusive)

‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ is out now on digital, then on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on February 13

Rachel Zegler brought her powerful vocals to the set The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

In a behind-the-scenes clip shared exclusively with PEOPLE, the actress can be seen recording — and singing live — many of the tunes her character Lucy Gray Baird performs throughout the film.

Adapted from the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins, Ballad of songbirds and snakes stars Zegler, 22, as a nomadic singer from District 12 who is forced to participate in the 10th annual Capitol Hunger Games.

She is assigned a young Coriolanus Snow (played by Tom Blyth) as her mentor, who eventually sees Lucy Gray in her element on stage, guitar in hand.

Many of the lyrics in the film’s songs were written by Collins herself, taken from the book and composed by James Newton Howard with the help of executive music supervisor Dave Cobb.

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Rachel Zegler in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbird and the Snake.”

Lionsgate

“That was one of the most interesting things when I was reading the book, because I was wondering, how are they going to make this music work in the context of the movie version?” said Zegler, a musical theater actress who made her Golden Globe debut in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 feature. A story from the west side.

“When I got all the footage for the music, I just fell in love,” she added in the clip. “We got this part right, for sure.”

Directed by Francis Lawrence, who also directed much of the original Hunger Games films starring Jennifer Lawrence, said Zegler is more than capable of bringing the songs to life.

“Not only could she do versions of these songs before recording, in the studio,” he explained, “but we also knew that Rachel could really do it once we brought her on set.”

Watching Zegler sing live on set would give producer Nina Jacobson “the chills,” she recalled in the recording.

“Especially because she mostly chose to sing live. Which is really rare — usually [actors] they put songs together and then harmonize or maybe sing softly, but they don’t bring it up every time because it would be exhausting. She brought it every time!”

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Rachel Zegler 2023

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One of those moments was the first day of filming, Lawrence said Entertainment Weekly in November. “The Old Before,” the song Lucy Gray sings in one of the film’s most important moments, “gave everybody goosebumps,” he recalled. “Some people even cried.”

Cobb said EW that Zegler was a “genius” and that he made producing the musical aspects of the film “easy and fun”. He added: “She didn’t need much training. She kind of trained us.”

Songbirds and snakes also starring Hunter Schafer, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman and Josh Andrés Rivera.

Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”

Murray Close/Lionsgate

Ahead of the film’s Nov. 17 release, Zegler told PEOPLE that she had no idea that wearing a belt on set would affect her work on screen so much. When asked what advice she would give to her younger self, she replied: “I would say, ‘Stay with voice lessons. You’ll be singing live a lot more than you probably thought you’d be going on film.’ That would probably be my advice to little Rachel.”

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is out now on digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on February 13th from Lionsgate.

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Source: HIS Education