'The Hunger Games' casting director explains why Jennifer Lawrence landed the Katniss role

With all of the incredible Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping casting announcements, co-casting directors Debra Zane and Dylan Jury are opening up more about the process and how they chose certain actors. 

Zane, who worked on the original Hunger Games movies, even discussed picking Jennifer Lawrence to take on the role of Katniss Everdeen. "It’s hard to explain. It’s gut instinct. I remember casting a different film years ago and just knowing someone would get the part," she told Teen Vogue. "With Jennifer, she was coming off Winter’s Bone and had Oscar buzz, but all the big-name actresses were reading for Katniss. And she just was Katniss. That’s what casting is: finding the most suitable actor. Sometimes someone surprises you and shows a new emotional layer that’s even better than expected. That’s the most exciting part, when someone exceeds what you imagined."

Meanwhile, Jury joined the franchise with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. However, casting for Sunrise on the Reaping was different because "[this book] came out simultaneously with the movie development. That made it very crazy and challenging for different reasons."