Director Gary Ross knew he needed a super cool trend setter to play the avant-garde stylist Cinna in "The Hunger Games." The first person he thought of was Lenny Kravitz.
It wasn't a complete out-of-the-box idea to offer the role to the rock superstar. Before Kravitz began his four-time Grammy-winning recording career, he had done some acting while growing up in New York. Acting also runs in his family -- he is the son of actress Roxie Roker ("The Jeffersons").
Slipping into "The Hunger Games" character was easy for Kravitz. Although the character is described as being quite gregarious, Kravitz decided his wardrobe should play it a little more low key.
"The first question I had to answer was, 'How far do you want to take this?' When I told friends, who had kids, that I was doing this film and playing Cinna, they were like, 'Oh yeah! He's super flamboyant and super out there!' I didn't know at the time what the movie's style was going to be," he says. "We thought it would be interesting to pull him back and make him more like a Tom Ford or Yves Saint Laurent.
"Cinna wears waistcoats, shirts and slacks and is very clean. The gold on his eyelids is his touch of the glam Capitol. He's more subdued than I thought, and I liked that."
It also helped that Kravitz knew "The Hunger Games" star Jennifer Lawrence through his daughter, Zoë, who co-starred with Lawrence in "X-Men: First Class."
Kravitz could have returned to
acting a long time ago. He's had many offers during the 23 years he has been making records. However, they all felt wrong to him.
"They were stereotypical and weird. They were based on 'Lenny Kravitz,' someone with his dreads and his look to go do this thing that was just me. There really was no imagination," he says. "I just forgot about acting and stuck with music because that's what I do."
It was director-producer Lee Daniels who finally came up with an idea that was imaginative enough to make Kravitz think about returning to acting. The first project they talked about, which would have starred Kravitz, didn't get off the ground. However, Daniels remembered Kravitz for the role of Nurse John when he made "Precious."
That small role reawakened Kravitz's acting interest.
"What I liked about the idea of acting was that my music is completely about me, self-indulgent. I play all the instruments. I write the songs. I produce the music. I liked being in this position of service, as corny as that might sound, of being there for the director to help bring out the character," he says. "I don't normally get somebody else telling me what to do, so I was really refreshed by that."
He says he will keep agreeing to get in front of the camera for roles that challenge him.
It's not a complete coincidence that Kravitz picked "Precious" and "The Hunger Games" for his return, both films based on much-heralded books.
"I am taken by the story. I didn't know about 'Hunger Games,' but after I got the book it was not what I expected. It's written so simply but yet so strongly, and at the end of each chapter I was like (expletive), I can't put this down.' For me, it's all about the story, and this had great characters and great story, and that's what made me sign on," he says.
And speaking of writing, Kravitz, who has eclectic taste in music, says if he had to write theme music for Cinna it would be dark, like an '80s David Bowie song.
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