How McKenna Grace paid tribute to Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen at the Hunger Games fashion exhibit at the Musée Rodin

It’s wild to me that the original tribute is being tributed but, sure, I guess that much time has passed since Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute and now she’s the one who people are styling themselves after.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opens in six weeks and the prequel cast has been doing advance publicity for a while now. There hasn’t been a premiere yet but a few of the young stars of the movie were in Paris for the opening of the Hunger Games fashion exhibit at the Musée Rodin, including McKenna Grace who wore a dress inspired by Katniss’s wedding dress from Catching Fire. (Tap to jump to TikTok for the video)

It’s not an exact replica, but it’s close – the skirt is different but close enough for people to mistake it as the original and for everyone to see the reference. (tap image to jump to tiktok)

If you know Suzanne Collins’s book, you are aware of course that McKenna’s character, Maysilee Donner, is not the main character, she is not the pure equivalent of JLaw’s Katniss in this story; this, after all, is Haymitch’s story, and Joseph Zada takes on that role. But Maysilee is also from District 12, also a tribute, and the Mockingjay pin was originally hers. So, professionally, the strategy here is to position McKenna as the new female star of the franchise and begin the next phase of her career from child star to proper lead actress.

Sunrise on the Reaping is expected to be a huge box office hit, releasing in time for American Thanksgiving. So it’ll be interesting to watch McKenna Grace’s celebrity trajectory over the next few months. She is definitely internet famous for Gen Z but she is not yet a household name, whatever the qualifications are to be a household name are these days.

The most highly anticipated photo when the Sunrise on the Reaping premieres start happening, then, will be the side-by-side shot of McKenna on the red carpet with Jennifer Lawrence. It’s long been known that JLaw and Josh Hutcherson will have cameos in the movie, especially since there’s an epilogue. What we don’t yet know is how much of a presence JLaw will have. Obviously the studio’s priority is to make sure that the new generation of stars is properly introduced to the audience while at the same time fully aware of the anticipation for JLaw returning to the role that made her a superstar.

Here she is in New York today after a brief trip to Paris last week at the Dior show. A couple of days ago, Dior launched the house’s new campaign featuring JLaw, Greta Lee, and Taylor Russell at LACMA.

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I love the frayed blazer she’s wearing in the shot below which was taken, clearly, before she cut her bangs. I think I might prefer her with bangs right now, is that crazy.