The brutal six-week shooting block vanished in a blur.
"District 12 and train sequences—wrapped! We're moving to the Capitol city sets!"
The entire crew let out a massive cheer.
Everyone had been grinding so hard that the last few weeks felt almost numb.
Cassius, though, had been on fire. His acting kept leveling up so fast that both Gary and the rest of the cast were openly impressed.
Woody Harrelson in particular had taken a real shine to him. He kept pulling Cassius and Jennifer aside after takes to break down the characters' cores. Every single one of those conversations dropped premium orbs.
Cassius's haul was ridiculous.
After devouring every colored orb the set spat out, his acting panel made a massive qualitative jump:
Acting Attribute Panel
Lines: Lv4 (312/800)
Body Language: Lv4 (745/800)
Expression: Lv4 (288/800)
Eyes: Lv4 (410/800)
Emotion: Lv4 (768/800)
Rhythm: Lv4 (255/800)
Aura: Lv4 (198/800)
Every single stat had climbed hard.
Body Language and Emotion were both knocking on the door of Level 5.
Boot-camp sparring, endless on-set movement drills, and all the high-quality orbs from veterans like Woody had paid off in a big way.
Cassius could feel it in his bones—his control over his body and the way he could now pour emotion through it had taken another clean step up: finer, more precise, and completely effortless.
The whole production caravan rolled into Pinewood Atlanta Studios.
They'd built almost every major Capitol interior here: the Tribute Training Center, the interview stage, and the Victor apartments.
Cassius, Jennifer, and the rest of the leads moved into the nicer hotel the production had booked nearby—actual suites this time.
Gotta give it to the location scouts; they knew what they were doing.
Charlotte?
The city name still made Cassius do a double-take every time—same as the lead in that Shen Teng movie. Kept yanking him out of the moment.
Still… the futuristic architecture in this American city was no joke.
The second Cassius stepped through the soundstage door, his pupils literally shook.
Everybody's seen those wild scene kids before, right?
But have you ever seen a hundred of them standing in one room?
Cassius froze in the doorway for a solid thirty seconds.
In the movie it just looked like stylized design.
In real life?
It was a full-on double assault on both his retinas and basic human common sense.
The guys were wearing every color of shiny suit and vest you could imagine. Hair dyed neon blue, hot pink, electric green—some of them had actual sparkler glitter stuck in it. Makeup so thick you couldn't tell if they were straight, gay, or just professionally extra.
The women had taken global non-mainstream fashion and gone full nuclear.
Eyeliner thick enough to look like they'd been punched twice, false lashes long enough to use as fans, hair stacked into giant sculptures of animals, flowers, and abstract art.
Blue. Purple. Red. Green—
"Holy shit!" Jennifer's stunned voice came from right beside him.
Her mouth was hanging open, eyes wide as dinner plates. She was clearly shook.
"What the actual fuck are these creatures? We really have to share frame with these people?"
She instinctively reached up and patted her own normal hair like she was making sure it hadn't spontaneously turned into a peacock.
"Congratulations, Katniss," Cassius deadpanned. "Welcome to the VIP wing of the insane asylum."
He couldn't help himself. "Pretty sure our survival challenge actually starts the second we walk in here. The real test during filming is gonna be not laughing our asses off."
Jennifer snorted so hard she had to slap a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking.
"You're right—this is way harder than boot camp! I finally get why Peeta and Katniss looked so fucking mind-blown when they first got to the Capitol. You don't even have to act. It's real."
Just then a styling assistant with a pastel-purple mohawk and silver lightning bolts painted across his face jogged over, schedule clipboard in hand.
"Miss Lawrence, Mr. Cassius—makeup first, please. Today we're doing final Capitol fittings and looks, then we'll grab some Training Center B-roll."
The two of them traded a relieved glance.
Thank God neither of them had to dress like that.
Jennifer was sent to the makeup trailer next door.
Cassius settled into his own chair and decided to sneak a quick nap while they worked on him. The new hotel bed was way too soft—he hadn't slept well last night.
He was still half-dozing when bursts of barely-contained laughter started rolling out of the soundstage.
"Cut!"
Gary Ross's exasperated voice rang out.
"Again!"
A props guy walked past the open door, saw Cassius in the chair, and shrugged. "Lawrence's purification scene—take six already."
Cassius remembered the scene.
Right after they arrive in the Capitol, before they even reach the Victor apartments, Katniss gets the full Capitol beauty-team treatment—head-to-toe cleaning and waxing.
It was a solo shot for Jennifer; Cassius wasn't in it.
Makeup finished, so he stepped out and leaned in the soundstage doorway to watch.
The set looked like a futuristic hospital ward—rows of curtained beds. Jennifer was lying on one of them.
Americans really went for realism.
She was completely naked underneath, wearing nothing but a thin disposable blue medical gown that barely covered anything.
Two full-on scene-kid extras stood beside her in shiny, skintight blue leather bodysuits covered in metal buckles. Hair and makeup exactly like the rest of the Capitol circus.
One of the guys was holding wax strips, actually waxing her legs on camera.
For authenticity.
That was where the trouble started.
These two background actors had clearly never done this kind of detailed work before, and being inches away from the lead actress had them nervous as hell.
One guy's hand shook. The wax strip slipped.
"Plop!"
It floated straight out of his fingers and landed smack on Jennifer's face.
She had been fighting laughter the whole time.
That did it—she lost it completely.
It was like someone flipped a switch.
The second extra saw his buddy screw up and started shaking too.
"Cut! Cut!"
Gary's voice came from behind the monitor. "Jennifer, hold it together! And you two—act like professionals! You're Capitol stylists, not panicked nail-school dropouts!"
"Sorry, director!"
"Sorry!"
Jennifer wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. "Fuck! Their faces are too funny—I literally can't stop!"
"Swear jar!"
The assistant's familiar voice rang out.
Jennifer rolled her eyes but still fished a coin from the little stool where she kept her stuff and lobbed it into the jar across the room.
"There. You happy now, you capitalist hall monitors?"
The whole set cracked up quietly.
Even Gary laughed. "Okay, okay—two-minute break. Reset. Jennifer, think about how humiliated and uncomfortable Katniss feels right now. She's being treated like an animal. This is not the time to laugh. And you two stylists—give me that impatient 'these district hicks are disgusting' energy, understand?"
"Got it, director!"
Cassius watched from the doorway, thoroughly entertained.
Just as Jennifer tried to pull herself back into Katniss's tense, mortified headspace, a purple orb dropped from her:
[Belief in Embarrassing Situations +6]
Nice!
Cassius absorbed it instantly.
That one was pure gold for any future scene where he had to push past natural instincts or awkwardness.
Being an actor was literally about convincing yourself—and the audience—that the insane situation was real.
Two minutes later they rolled again.
"Action!"
Jennifer lay back down.
The two extras locked in.
This time they didn't mess up.
Jennifer stayed perfectly still. Only her tightly pressed lips and the occasional tremble of her lashes gave away how unsettled she really was.
Rip!
The wax strip tore off her leg.
Jennifer's whole body jerked. Her eyes snapped nervously to her calf.
Cassius nodded approvingly from the side.
Once Jennifer was truly in it, her performance had real depth.
A new orb dropped from her:
[Physical Emotional Expression +7]
Absorbed.
Cassius felt his understanding of how to convey negative emotions through body language deepen another notch.
It didn't last long.
When one stylist lifted Jennifer's arm for underarm waxing, the cold metal scissors brushed her skin and every hair on her arm stood up.
She couldn't hold it—she shrugged hard and let out a weird little "Ehh!" sound from the back of her throat.
"Cut!"
Gary's voice shot up. "Jennifer!"
"I can't help it!"
Jennifer was red-faced, half embarrassed, half annoyed. "That thing tickles like crazy, and this stupid gown is basically see-through—I keep feeling completely naked!"
She instinctively tugged the flimsy medical gown tighter around herself.
Gary rubbed his forehead. He knew forcing it wasn't going to work.
He thought for a second, then his eyes landed on Cassius standing at the door watching the whole circus.
"Cass! Come here!"
Cassius blinked, pointing at himself. "Me?"
"Yeah, you. Your next scene is with Jennifer anyway—come help her find the vibe. Just stand right here by the monitor. Don't say a word. Just look at her the way Peeta would be looking at her."
Gary had a sudden spark of inspiration. "Jennifer, look at Cass. Imagine he's Peeta, standing there watching you go through all of this. His eyes might help you drop into Katniss faster."
In the story at this point the two of them still weren't super close.
But Katniss already knew Peeta was the boy who had thrown her the bread. They were both from District 12. In this strange new city, there was a natural sense of closeness between them.
Cassius walked over and stood exactly where Gary pointed, eyes locked on Jennifer in the center of the set.
He didn't force any particular expression—just relaxed his face and let his eyes go calm and steady.
The next second he was Peeta.
Gary Ross, sitting right beside him, showed a flash of genuine surprise.
He hadn't expected Cassius to lock onto the core of Peeta so quickly and drop into the role in seconds.
Clearly the kid had been doing serious private work on the character.
Gary gave an appreciative little nod.
He didn't interrupt. Instead he quietly signaled the crew to get ready to roll again.
Jennifer looked straight at Cassius. Their eyes met across the set.
She froze for a split second.
Then Cassius's Emotion stat—already knocking on Level 5—poured through his gaze.
The embarrassment and laughter slowly drained from Jennifer's face.
She genuinely seemed to feel Peeta's presence there with her.
In that made-up world, Peeta was the only person who could possibly understand the nightmare she was living through right now.