Rachel Zegler pays homage to Katniss Everdeen's fire dress during Hunger Games prequel premiere

Rachel Zegler has paid homage to Katniss Everdeen’s dress for the premiere of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

The West Side Story star is truly ‘The Girl on Fire’ right now.

While walking the red carpet for The Hunger Games prequel, the 22-year-old stunned in a black mermaid dress with red bursting ‘flames’ on the tail, which resembled the dress Cinna made for Katniss in the 2014 sequel Catching Fire.

In the famous scene, while speaking to ‘Hunger Games’ host Caesar Flickerman before the deadly tournament, Katniss wore a glittering white dress that became engulfed by flames when she twirled.

And people loved Zegler’s outfit.

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One X user wrote: “This is pretty iconic.”

Another said: “SHE’S EVERYTHING.”

While a third commented: “She looks amazing. Can't wait to watch her performance!”

According to reports, the highly awaited film received SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement ahead of its theatrical release on November 17, which allowed cast and crew to promote the film before the premiere.

The flick takes place 64 years before the first Hunger Games movie and follows a young Coriolanus Snow, living as an orphan with his grandmother and cousin Tigris in a small apartment.

As a top-performing academic student, Snow is chosen as a mentor for the 10th Hunger Games, where he’s assigned to a tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, a girl from the impoverished District 12, and the two develop a close friendship.

Tom Blyth plays Coriolanus Snow, and Zegler plays the role of Lucy Gray Baird.

Francis Lawrence, who led three of the Hunger Games films, has returned to the director's chair for the prequel.

Lawrence has previously opened up about the ‘exhaustive’ process of trying to cast Lucy.

The director says Zegler ‘blew the roof off’ when she auditioned, as per Entertainment Weekly.

"Like everybody, I first saw Rachel Zegler in West Side Story, and like everybody, I knew I was watching a star who would command the screen for a generation," he said.

While speaking to Empire Magazine, the director also expressed doubts he had before production, questioning if people would see a Hunger Games movie without Katniss.

However, Lawrence views Zegler’s role as the ‘anti-Katniss’.

“Katniss was an introvert and a survivor,” he said.

“She was quite quiet and stoic, you could almost say [she was] asexual. Lucy Gray is the opposite. She wears her sexuality on her sleeve, [and] she really is a performer.”

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