Get A Load Of Effie

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As anticipated, I've watched the trailer for The Hunger Games several (dozen) times now, and I just keep falling more and more in love with what Elizabeth Banks is doing with Effie. She looks amazing, it was one of those "A-ha!" moments where it wasn't entirely what I'd pictured when reading the books but now that I've seen it realized that way it totally makes sense, you know? But it's not just the visual of a cotton-candy atrocity that's working - there's that voice! The voice she's using, so measured and tangy and kind of coldly robotic in its sunshine - it's just fantastic, all of it. Here's Banks herself talking some about playing Effie:

"I would be in the hair and makeup trailer and I was Elizabeth, and then the wig went on and very suddenly I was Effie. Every day I would have that aha moment, like, 'We did it! We found Effie!'"

... "Effie is a very complicated woman. She's a spinner. She spins everything into something positive. These kids have been pulled from their loved ones to compete on television in this horrible event in which they will likely lose their lives."

Effie, she says, is "charged with making their last days before they're in the Games as positive as possible, so that they go into the Games with a great attitude. And, of course, that seems crazy."

"Katniss is so strong, so courageous, and when faced with this overly positive, super-enthusiastic Effie, [Jennifer] and I definitely had some great moments of conflict.

"For sure the biggest challenge of playing Effie was the shoes! All of my shoes in the movie are completely amazing but highly uncomfortable. I said to Gary, 'You better be shooting these shoes, because they're killing me.'"