Photo by: Jonny Marlow
We were joined on the Popternative show by Ashley Liao who plays Clemensia Dovecote in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, playing now in theaters. A prequel to the Hunger Games films, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is set 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute, and decades before Coriolanus Snow became the tyrannical President of Panem. With his livelihood threatened, Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zigler), a tribute from District 12. Clemensia is a student at the Academy in the Capital and one of Coriolanus’s close friends who also is selected to be a mentor for the 10th Hunger Games.

Ashley discusses preparing for her role in a franchise that has a lot of source material:

“Growing up watching the entire Hunger Games series and franchise, I definitely did re watch all of them again and I did a marathon, and unfortunately and fortunately you can see that on Letterboxd, it was just three days of me watching Hunger Games. I definitely did research on the fact that this is set during the 10th annual Hunger Games [which] gives us some perspective into how far back we’re really going. And so everyone in the Capitol has this kind of…not accent per se, but they very much talk in a specific way, and so I think with Clemensia, over enunciating was a big one for her. I needed to make sure that we have a fluid path into how they started speaking like that.”

(L-R): Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Ashley Liao as Clemensia Dovecote in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Photo by: Murray Close/Lionsgate

When talking about the Hunger Games fan base and the global reception of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Ashley highlights the importance of Asian American representation with portraying Clemensia:

“I’m so grateful. I have people that are messaging me that are like ‘I’m 13, I was your age when you first started watching this and I always wondered where the Asian people were and now you’re here,’ and it really hit me that the impact of Clemensia is not just the fact that she’s an it girl and is confident and is a girl boss, but also the fact that they chose me, someone who is Taiwanese American to get to play her means so much not just to the franchise, but to Asian Americans. And that is really something that is very special to me. It’s not something I grew up with and it’s something I hope the next generation or this generation doesn’t have to grow up with.”

(L-R) Nico Hiraga as Xavier Yeh and Ashley Liao as Ever Wong in Love in Taipei. Photo by: Dragon 5/Paramount+ 

We also get into her other projects that involved existing source material including the summer rom-com, Love in Taipei on Paramount+ based on the New York Times’ best-selling novel Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen. “Getting to go back [to Taiwan] for work but also knowing we were making a film that highlighted the city of Taipei in a very different light than I grew up with was really special to me and I’m still incredibly grateful that they chose me to play Ever,” Ashley says.

Watch the full conversation with Ashley Liao below.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is playing in theaters and Love in Taipei is streaming on Paramount+.

Follow Ashley Liao: Instagram | X

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