Elizabeth Banks is clearly excited by the incredible success of The Hunger Games, which hauled in $155 million domestically in its opening weekend, but she’s also defending the film’s portrayal of violence, saying that the filmmakers “are protecting our young fans.”

“You know I think we protected the brutality that’s necessary to tell this story, but we also are protecting our young fans,” she tells ET. “It’s a PG-13 movie, it’s not R rated. I don’t think there’s anything excessive or exploitative about the violence in The Hunger Games.”

Of the film’s worldwide opening of $214.3 million, Elizabeth gleams, “It’s always an amazing feeling when so many passionate people come out to see movies. You know, the only reason to make movies is for people to see them, so I’m so excited that so many people turned out for The Hunger Games and loved it, you know?”

In the futuristic movie, Elizabeth plays Effie Trinket, the eccentric Capitol advisor to Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence), who risks her life as tribute to save her sister.

“I knew it was a great piece of material, and I knew that I loved these characters and this journey of Katniss Everdeen’s,” says Elizabeth, “but man, I had no idea so many people were going to jump on the bandwagon with me.”

So what’s next for the star? The drama People Like Us, in theaters June 29. Elizabeth plays a single mom and recovering addict whose father dies, and she discovers she has a brother she never knew about, played by Chris Pine. Calling it an “amazing, character-driven story,” she jokes, “Chris Pine’s showing off in this movie. … He plays a character that you really should not like … [but] because it’s Chris Pine playing this character, you’re in love with him from the first minute and you’re rooting for him the whole time.”

ETOnline.com

You might have to squint at Effie Trinket in “The Hunger Games” to spot Elizabeth Banks under the layers of confection-colored costuming, but she’s in there.

An unabashed fan of the Suzanne Collins’ novels from which the film is derived, Banks tells PopcornBiz she was more than willing to endure a little claustrophobia to bring the relentlessly upbeat but empty-hearted Effie to life on the big screen, and she reveals just where she drew the line when it came to compromising her own dignity for fame.

Can you still see yourself underneath Effie?

A little. I see little things every once in a while, but I’m pretty proud how far away from myself I went.

Was it claustrophobic to have all of that layered over you?

Oh, my God, I got out of that thing as fast as possible! At all moments that I could be out of it, I was out of it. I got heat exhaustion my third day of filming, which I’d never had before and I don’t recommend it to anyone. It wasn’t claustrophobic. It was very uncomfortable and purposefully so. I wanted her clothes to be oppressive. I mean, she’s horrible. She’s not a good person. She’s very vain and selfish and I really wanted the costume to work on me as an actress and it did. It was a great part of the job that I was doing, being restricted and oppressed and hot and uncomfortable and just being constantly reminded that that’s what I live under.

How did you go about transforming yourself into someone so eccentric?

Well, Suzanne [Collins] wrote her with pink hair and crazy outfits. So, we looked at that. That was our first inspiration. Gary [Ross] said, ‘I just imagine her face like Joel Grey in “Caberet.”‘ So, that was one thing. We also wanted her to be ageless. I have this sense that in the Capital they use this use this crazy, weird plastic surgery and f***ed-up s**t. So I wanted it to be like, ‘Is she 20 or a 110?’ Once we had the look established, it was about two and a half hours of makeup every day, which is not that bad, I guess.

Is the look you guys came up with anywhere near the look you pictured when you were reading the book?

In all honesty, I didn’t picture so much the way that Effie looked as the way that she carried herself. The attitude is what I feel I nailed. The way that I imagined her attitude is what I wanted to get out in the movie and I feel like I did that.

Do you relish having an opportunity to have a costume and makeup and voice like that because you don’t get to do that all that often?

Yeah, of course. It’s so much fun to watch yourself disappear everyday and have Effie appear. I really was not Effie unless it was on. I would have that aha moment where she came together for me everyday. Sometimes it was the lip. Sometimes it was the hat. Sometimes it wasn’t until I was walking, like, ‘Oh, here’s Effie.’ She lived somewhere in there and I had to sort of find her every day.

What was everyone’s entry point into ‘The Hunger Games’? Were you a fan of the book or did you learn about it when you got the script?

I’m a total nerd. I had read all three books long before the movie. I was just a huge fan of the writing. I read the first book really early on, before it was a bestseller. I don’t own it because I gave it to my sister and I gave another one to my mother. My whole family had read it, and then I actually had to be on the waiting list for ‘Mockingjay’ on Amazon for two months.

How did you come across it to begin with? Is it a genre that you’re really interested in?

Yeah. I read a similarly themed book called ‘The Maze Runner,’ which is a great book, and a friend said, ‘If you liked that book, you’ll really like this one.’ I have a production company and we’re always looking at material to buy, and we went very far down the road with ‘Maze Runner,’ which is actually being made. They’re working on a script right now for Catherine Hardwicke to direct. We ultimately ended up not partnering with this other company to do it. So ‘Maze Runner’ was a great book and someone said, ‘If you like that you should read “Hunger Games,”‘ and of course by the time that I read it Nina Jacobson had it already.

Since you were fan of the books what was it like when you got the role of Effie?

I mean, I did a little dance. I was in Gary Ross’ office. He brought me in to show me all the references and he was sort of torturing me because he didn’t say that I was doing it until like an hour of us hanging out in his office. He was like, ‘Why did you think I brought you down here? I wasn’t wasting your time.’ So I did a little dance. I was really excited. I loved her. I had a lot of ideas about her, and Gary and I had a really great dialogue about it. It was really fun.

Was there something that you read in the novel or the screenplay that you went, ‘Now I get who this person is’?

For me, I can’t remember the exact quote, but Effie says something to Katniss, she slaps her hand and goes, ‘You’re driving me crazy!’ or something. I can’t stand teenage girls, like I want to beat them. I want to beat them all. I can’t believe that I ever was one. They’re horrible. They’re so self-involved and they all hate their mothers. I was there. I was the exact same. There’s no judgment. It’s just a horrible time in someone’s life and they don’t know it’s horrible. They think it’s great, but they’re all being such little…anyways. So, I just had that feeling of like, ‘Wow. I’m there now. That’s how I feel about teenage girls,’ and if I was Effie and this Katniss girl showed up and she was giving me grief I’d be really pissed.

Was there a moment in your career where you realized dignity is more important than fame?

I remember being offered a movie and it was like, ‘Listen, you’ll be naked in this bathtub and they’ll slash your throat. It’s going to be awesome.’ I was like, ‘Goodbye.’ That was like audition number four or something, like, ‘Yeah. I’m good. No, let’s not do that.’ ‘But Mario Van Peebles is going to be in it.’ ‘Okay. Thanks though.’ I love Mario, great guy. It’s just that one was not for me.

NBCChicago.com

On this uncensored episode of Up Close, Carrie Keagan goes toe-to-toe with Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Woody Harrelson and director Gary Ross for an unprecedented and no holds barred look at their movie The Hunger Games! From manscaping to sex swings to who has the best ass, you’re not gonna miss this!

Check out Elizabeth Banks on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” that aired last night in the two videos below!

I’m sure that there are people over at Lionsgate who are crossing their fingers and don’t want to get too amped for opening weekend, but the truth is that The Hunger Games is going to make a ridiculous amount of money this weekend. Fans of the book have been waiting for this week for months and I can guarantee you that many of them will be heading to the theater more than once. But what is it about The Hunger Games that makes it so popular? Having recently had the chance to sit down one-on-one with Elizabeth Banks I took the opportunity to ask her.

In the interview below Banks not only talks about the phenomenon, but also working with Gary Ross for the second time, her opinion of Effie Trinket as a person, and how she approached the full trilogy while learning the character.

I know that you were a big fan of these books going in, so just looking at it from the outside, this story really has become a phenomenon and I was hoping you could tell me why you think that is.

Well, first of all, the way she writes the book – they’re just page-turners. You can’t put them down. So there’s that. Rebellious teen at the heart of it, I think a lot of people can relate to that, and there’s a great love story, of course. But most importantly I think it really speaks to our time. There’s just something in the zeitgeist right now about media and using media not just to entertain but to shape our world – oppressive governments, youth revolts. It’s happening around the world right now.

Even the Occupy movement and the 99%.

Of course! The whole Occupy movement, I think, is reflected in these books. So Suzanne [Collins] really was tapping into…she set it in the future, but she obviously was tapping into something that she felt was around us and in our universe.

I think that’s what’s great about the science-fiction genre in general.

Yeah, always. And it works on so many levels. Think about how nature, in these books, is the sustenance for Katniss, she’s named for it, right? I love that. I love that’s she’s basically saying, “Hey world, you’re using up these amazing resource that we don’t pay any attention to anymore.” So many levels working here because she’s such a smart writer and it’s something for everyone.

And to talk a bit more about Effie in particular, I’m curious about what your opinion of her is. In her appearance she clearly represents the Capitol, but I’m curious if think there is more to her underneath?

Well, I think ultimately – as I’ve said, I’ve read all three books – so we don’t see it now, but ultimately Effie is a broken woman. I think that Effie drank the Kool Aid, she not only represents visually the Capitol in our movie, but also the attitude of the citizens. She is our look into how they feel about the Hunger Games. I think that change is difficult for people in power [laughs]. She does not want a change. But she’s not unaware of what’s really going on. I don’t think she’s torn, I actually think she’s a very selfish person. So ultimately I see her as a villain, but not a bad heart. She’s not killing anybody. She wants her hands clean, I just think that she’s a traditional person. It reminded me, I looked a lot at daughters of the revolution and women in the south, even reading The Help I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s Effie.” Effie is one of these ladies. She’s a slave owner, “I’m good to my slaves! What are you talking about?” You can see Effies throughout history.

You mentioned that you’ve read the books, but is that something that you can bring to your performance in this film, knowing what comes next for your character?

The whole thing to me is the roadmap to Effie. I’ve been doing interviews with Wes Bentley, and Seneca Crane, there’s not a ton of information about him in the books, so he really got to play and create someone. But Effie, there’s a lot of information about Effie and so we really took all that and tried to get her essence and attitude on screen and I think that we did a good job of it.

That in mind, knowing how precious this book is to people including yourself, do you feel a strange pressure when it comes to adding to the character?

We did add. I was really confident that we had a handle on her. I knew that we were putting together something that at least I felt comfortable for the fans, for myself for Gary [Ross] – the director – and Suzanne Collins. We cannot please everyone else beyond that, you know? We can hope for consensus that we did a good job, but there’s no way that we’re ever going to get it right for everybody. So you just have to get it right for yourself, for ourselves. Once we had that there was this great sense of play because I had her point of view. I knew exactly the type of person that she was and what she cared about. So there are a few little great improv lines that I’m really excited about, that I love.

I know you’ve worked with Gary Ross before, but because this is such a different project was he a different kind of director?

You know, I was low man on the totem pole on Seabiscuit, and on this one I was not so low on the totem pole [laughs]. It was like old hat, so that was good [laughs]. The great thing for me and Gary, I think, is that we had a great trust in each other. So he was like, “If Banks is good, do your thing.” He was really able to focus on the character and the young people, some of whom were making their first movie. He had bigger fish to fry, in other words. We have a great shorthand and a good ease with each other about everything. I was so excited when he got the job because he’s such a great storyteller. He comes from writing, he sees the whole movie while he writes, he’s deeply involved in subtlety. We had a great conversation about the book and how much we loved all these little details and so I knew that was what he was going to go for with pulling out the little details. That’s what makes a very specific movie. This isn’t just some kids in a battle royale. It’s a very emotional movie because Gary paid attention to those tiny details.

CinemaBlend.com

Much like what “Twilight” did for the private lives of Kristen Stewart, Rob Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner, “The Hunger Games” is expected to do the same to its stars, especially the series’ heroine, Katniss, played by Jennifer Lawrence. Although the 21-year-old actress has already been nominated for an Oscar (for 2010′s “Winter’s Bone”), that’s nothing compared to the mega-attention she will undoubtedly get come March 23 when the film hits theaters. “It’s going to change Jennifer’s life for sure,” Elizabeth Banks, who plays Effie Trinkett, tells omg! — but she’s not worried. Noting that Lawrence has a good head on her shoulders, she adds, “She’s going to be just fine.” Being thrust into the spotlight at such a young age is not something Banks, 38, is familiar with — she didn’t start acting until she was 26, in a 2000 episode of “Sex and the City.” And starring alongside so many fresh faces in “The Hunger Games” (in addition to Lawrence, the cast also includes Josh Hutcherson, 19, and Liam Hemsworth, 22) was a “funny” experience, she says. “I was never that young in this business … so it’s really interesting to see. They all want to hang out together and they’re trading their music.”

Banks had been gunning to star in “The Hunger Games” from the moment it was announced the Suzanne Collins book series was heading to the big screen. An avid fan of the novels — she spent three months on Amazon’s waiting list for the third installment, “Mockingjay” — the actress says she constantly checked the trades for updates. To her luck, Gary Ross, her friend who directed her in “Seabiscuit,” was hired to helm “The Hunger Games” — and that’s when she started her campaign for the role of Effie, the pink-haired chaperone for District 12′s tributes Katniss and Peeta (Hutcherson). “When he got the job, I emailed him to say, ‘I’d love to be…’ and he [cut me off and] said, ‘Banksy, I gotta find my Katniss [first].’ … I honestly just loved the character [of Effie] and I loved the world, and I was a fan so I wanted to get involved.”

Once Ross found Lawrence — who beat out Emma Roberts, Hailee Steinfeld, and Abigail Breslin for the coveted lead role of Katniss — Banks was able to secure her spot as Effie. “There was no other role for me to play in the series,” she insists. “Effie, I think, is the most fun. I felt very connected to her, and I just knew there was something there for me to do. I was really excited about the idea of a physical transformation, and I just loved her attitude. She represents the Capitol. Not just visually, but also their attitude throughout the whole series.”

Effie is notorious in the books for putting a sheen on the deadly Hunger Games, in which 24 young people go in and only one comes out alive. The character is easily the comedic relief in the somber melodrama, which is the perfect role for Banks, who has gotten lots of laughs over the years in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” and on “30 Rock.” “The reason [Effie's] funny is because she’s putting on an outrageously happy face on these completely somber circumstances,” explains the actress. “My only concern was making sure she was not a clown, that everything was real. She has such a different point of view on what’s going on here. That’s what’s fun and funny about her, and kind of grotesque. In her mind, these kids won a lottery ticket to be on the greatest reality show. Yeah, they’re going to die, but they’re going to die heroes and be glorified by their districts.”

Transforming into Effie was not always an enjoyable experience though. It took Banks nearly three hours every day to turn into the eccentrically-dressed character. “I walked around in my wig cap all the time,” jokes Banks. “I would get that thing off my head as soon as possible. It was like wearing a plastic bag on your head in 90 degree heat all the time. And my nails were a real problem. They were really cool, but they were problematic. They were full fakes and we had special on/off glue everyday because obviously she has different nails for every outfit.”

Banks is not only celebrating the release of “The Hunger Games,” but also the first birthday of her son, Felix. After struggling with infertility for years, she and her husband, Max Handelman, welcomed their little bundle of joy via a surrogate last March 18. “He’s about to walk,” gushes Banks. “He’s taken four steps, three steps, and then he goes, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I doing?’ And then he sits down. He freaks out a little bit. He’s not quite brave yet to walk, but it’s coming. And I’m not wishing for it. I’m like, ‘If it takes him three more months, that’s fine with me.’”

Yahoo.com

The cultural frenzy over Hunger Games, opening on Friday, is hitting new heights.

Hunger Games star Elizabeth Banks — fresh off the film’s European press tour — was the special guest at last night’s Slate.com Culture Gabfest, a podcast now up on the site. The March 20 event was presented in partnership with Zocalo Public Square and held at the Petersen Car Museum on Wilshire Blvd.

After lively discussions between three dazzlingly smart, facile and amusing Slate editors (Julia Turner, Dana Stevens, Stephen Metcalf) about the controversy over Mike Daisey’s Apple computer expose on NPR, proven to be filled with lies, and the merits of the manic pixie girlfriend feminine archetype symbolized by Zoey Deschanel on The New Girl, Banks was brought onstage to answer questions about her hotly anticipated new Lionsgate film.

Banks, who plays the eccentric Effie Trinket in Games, talked about her deep love for the novel by Suzanne Collins, that follows Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), a 16-year-old girl living in a dystopian futuristic North America called Panem.

Turns out she and her husband’s (Max Handelman) production company (Brownstone Productions) had been eyeing a book called Maze Runner, which is also about adolescents in a dystopian future world with young people forced to compete for their lives, with a underlying critique of reality TV shows. But she considers Games to be superior in terms of the writing and the pace.

About her character: “She’s the villain and she’s a PR maven. She definitely drank the Kool-Aid. Her job is to lead young people to their death but she has a great outlook about it.”

On Effie’s look: “The director talked about Joel Grey in Cabaret.” And she also mentioned the 15th century influences of Marie Antoinette’s hair (albeit pink) mixed with Japanese Kabuki masks.

On the challenges of being a scrutinized Hollywood actress: “I always shave my legs before leaving the house. And that’s why I’m wearing leather pants tonight. I don’t want to read about this on the Internet.”

One of Banks’ favorite characters in the book was left out of the movie: the District 12 mayor’s daughter, Madge Undersee, who gives Katniss a pin that she wears in the games.

Asked what age is suitable to see the film: “Well, the movie is rated PG-13. So I have to say the appropriate age would be 13. But horrible things are happening in the world all around us – look at the Congo – and this is only a movie.”

Banks also recommended one of her favorite hangouts, Meltdown Comics, a store on Sunset Blvd. and encouraged the Slate audience to read more graphic novels, a genre she feels doesn’t get enough respect.

Finally, someone asked the inevitable love triangle-Games question: Is she Team Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) or Team Gale (Liam Hemsworth)? Banks replied, “Definitely Team Peeta. There’s just something about the way he loves Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) so deeply.”

HollywoodReporter.com