For McKenna Grace, experimenting with clothes on The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping press tour has made getting dressed feel less anxious after years of uncertainty about her body and style.
“now I’m having fun with fashion versus it being something of anxiety.” — Mckenna Grace
The 20-year-old described how growing up with body insecurities shaped her relationship with fashion. “Fashion’s been weird and hard for me to figure out, so being able to play around with it in this way has been so fun for me,” she said.
That freedom has included dressing in tribute to the actors and characters who came before her. Grace has worn a look inspired by Katniss Everdeen’s wedding gown in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, plus a cream-and-grey midi dress in the same style Jena Malone wore to that film’s 2013 premiere. Malone played Johanna Mason.
Her red dress at the 6th Annual Academy Museum Gala also referenced Jennifer Lawrence’s body-hugging 2011 Oscars gown. Grace called Lawrence, who played Katniss, her “favourite actress.”
“Everything is a reference lately,” Grace said. “It’s just homage to all the people that were a part of this franchise before I was … it’s been really cool. I’m overwhelmed and thankful.”
Grace plays sisters Maysilee and Merrilee Donner in Sunrise on the Reaping. The franchise’s 6th film adapts Suzanne Collins’ 5th novel, following a young Haymitch Abernathy during the Second Quarter Quell, decades before he mentors Katniss and Peeta Mellark.
Grace has also spoken about how scoliosis surgery changed her relationship with clothes. Diagnosed at 12, she underwent surgery 4 years before these remarks to keep the curvature of her spine from affecting her lung. The procedure reduced the curve from 45 degrees to 6 degrees.
“I had a really big life-changing surgery on my back a few years ago that changed the way I stand and the way that my body looks in clothes, so I feel like my style is kind of ever-evolving,” she said.
