Hunger Games' Donald Sutherland calls Jennifer Lawrence a 'delivery system for truth'

Donald, who has won prestigious accolades and is recognised as a big hitter in Hollywood, returns with J-Law in Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.

Talking about her in the latest and last instalment of the movie franchise, Donald, father to 24 actor Kiefer Sutherland, said: “She’s a delivery system for truth. Like a cigarette paper is a delivery system for tobacco, she’s a delivery system for the truth, for the character. She’s wonderful.”

He also revealed how younger fans are drawn to his Hunger Games character, President Snow.

He explained: “Young people when they see me in an airport walking down will grab hold of my trousers – they’re all small and their mother will stand them up on a chair or something and they’ll have their picture taken but they do ask when they’re standing beside me and whisper in my ear ‘look mean, please’.”

When asked why he thinks the film resonates with such a wide audience, he said: “It has to. And partly the brilliance of that genius child, Jennifer, to get it done, but it has to, otherwise we’re lost.”

The Dirty Dozen actor said he knows from personal experience that films can “activate you”.

He recalled: “I know when I came out of (and I saw it by accident) Paths Of Glory – the Stanley Kubrick film with Kirk Douglas, Humphrey Cobb’s book – it filled me with so much rage at the injustice of the political system that I picked up gravel on the ground and threw it, threw it. I can remember the physical gesture of being unable to channel the rage. And I threw things – so we can and we need millions and millions of people to organise, you know.”

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is in cinemas now.