Interview with Elizabeth Banks (Effie)

New York Magazine has published an expanded transcript of their recent interview with Elizabeth Banks and in it she dishes about a details on Effie, the seeds she planted early on to get the part, and how she wept while they filmed the Reaping:
Are people going to have brightly colored skin?All I can tell you is that Effie does have pink hair. When the hair and makeup was finished, we had all these people in the trailer and it was like everybody just got giddy all at once, like, “We did it!” and “This is Effie! It’s going to be awesome!” We were so happy.
Did you tone down her look from what’s described in the book?Yeah, you know, it was like, “What’s the shape of the hair? Is it long? Is it curly? Is it short? Is it straight?” And I know Suzanne Collins had ideas, so it was all about like, “What can we do tonally right in the movie?” You can get away with a lot of things in a book that you can’t get away with when you’re visually watching kids kill each other. So we just wanted to make sure that she didn’t look too clownish. And that we honored the solemnity of what’s going on in the book. I wouldn’t say we toned it down at all, but it’s very specific.
She was the part you saw yourself as?Oh yeah, totally. It’s the only part that I’m right for. The movie is about 20-year-olds.
Sixteen-year-olds, actually. Yeah, the cast is all 20.
There’s brouhaha about that. Yeah, but if people had to deal with the labor laws that we have to deal with, they’d understand why we can’t cast 15-year-olds. Anyway, Jen [Lawrence] is perfectly cast. She’s amazing. The real deal. Honestly, when we shot the Reaping, I wept.
What are you doing with the production now?Not much since they’ve been shooting all the battle sequences. So it involves all the kids that go into battle. I’m going back for the first time on Friday [post-dated to last week]. I’m excited because all of the adults will be there, so it will be me and Woody Harrelson and Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland, and we’re going to be in Charlotte doing all the scenes that take place at the Capitol, which will be really fun. I’ve never been to Charlotte because when I went for Hunger Games [the first time], I immediately flew into the airport and drove to the country.