In the evolution of the [The Hunger Games] movie, Gary [Ross] and I talked a lot about tonal bandwidth and making sure that the look and feel and style and choices of the movie stayed within a certain consistent bandwidth.

The hiring of Phil Messina, the production designer, was a big decision. He's so gifted, and his ideas were always so smart and rooted in American history and architecture. Nothing feels like it's not us, or couldn't be us, and I think that's very important.

Suzanne [Collins] was very involved in the development of the script. She wrote the first draft. She was very involved with Billy Ray, when he wrote his draft.

Women are making strides in many areas and women have mentored and supported me along the way. I think that women are underrepresented behind the camera as directors.

There's as much great authorship in the filmmaker community as in the literary community, and I'd love to welcome more filmmakers into the fold.

We both [with Suzanne Collins ] felt strongly that you wouldn't want to age up the characters, no matter the age of the actors playing the roles. They should be playing the age that they are in the [Hunger Games] books. It would let people off the hook, if you said, "Well, instead of 12 to 18, why don't you make them 18 to 25 or 16 to 21?" If you don't stay true to the horror of the fact that they are 12 to 18, you're not doing justice to the book.

Suzanna Collins was very supportive, but we very much wanted her blessing on casting. In production, she visited us once, but she really was not involved in the production process. She's seen the Hunger Games movie twice, in the post-production process, once as an early cut and then once when it was finished.