Who is Mckenna Grace, actress set to play Maysilee Donner in ‘Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping'?
Who is Mckenna Grace?
Grace gained early recognition for her portrayal of young Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel (2019) and as Phoebe Spengler in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and its sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) Wikipedia. She also starred in I, Tonya (2017) and Troop Zero (2019), showcasing her range in various genres?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping set to release in 2026; Date, full cast, plot & key details revealed
Lionsgate has officially announced that The Hunger Games : Sunrise on the Reaping , the latest prequel in the blockbuster dystopian franchise, will hit theaters worldwide on November 20, 2026, bringing audiences back to Panem for a deeper look at one of the series' most enigmatic characters: Haymitch Abernathy . Based on Suzanne Collins ' 2025 bestselling novel of the same name, the film chronicles the events of the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell, and offers a gripping origin story of the man who would later mentor Katniss Everdeen. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category others healthcare CXO Artificial Intelligence Cybersecurity MBA Data Science Degree Finance MCA Technology Healthcare Product Management Operations Management Others Public Policy Design Thinking PGDM Data Analytics Data Science Project Management Digital Marketing Leadership Management Skills you'll gain: Duration: 16 Weeks Indian School of Business CERT - ISB Cybersecurity for Leaders Program India Starts on undefined Get Details 'In Sunrise on the Reaping, Collins continues her exploration of propaganda and power, this time through the eyes of a 16-year-old Haymitch,' Lionsgate said in a statement earlier this week. 'It's a story of brutality, survival, and the cost of becoming a victor.' From page to screen, again Francis Lawrence , who directed Catching Fire and the Mockingjay films, returns to helm the prequel, while screenwriter Billy Ray adapts the script. The book, released in March 2025, topped bestseller charts in multiple countries and sold more than 1.5 million copies in its first week. Live Events Set 24 years before the original trilogy, the story follows Haymitch as he is reaped into a deadly arena that's twice the size of any previous Games. Collins has cited the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume as inspiration, particularly his work on the 'fragility of trust in perceived reality during societal collapse.' A powerhouse ensemble cast Lionsgate has assembled an all-star cast for the film, with rising actor Joseph Zada portraying a young Haymitch. Whitney Peak, known for Gossip Girl, plays Lenore Dove, while McKenna Grace steps into the role of Maysilee Donner, a tribute fans will recognize from Haymitch's haunting recollections. Rounding out the cast: Ralph Fiennes as President Snow Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee (taking over the role originated by Philip Seymour Hoffman) Elle Fanning as a young Effie Trinket Maya Hawke as Wiress Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman Billy Porter as Gamemaker Magno Stift Glenn Close as Drusilla Sickle The challenge of casting without a script Casting the film posed a unique challenge. At the time casting began, neither the book nor the screenplay was available. 'We had to rely on character breakdowns and instinct,' casting director Debra Zane told Teen Vogue. 'It was unlike any project I've worked on.' Producer Nina Jacobson, who has overseen every film in the franchise, praised the final selections: 'Once the manuscript came in, everything clicked. These actors didn't just fit the characters visually, they became them.' The Hunger Games franchise has grossed more than $3 billion worldwide, and with Sunrise on the Reaping, Lionsgate appears poised to reignite the phenomenon for a new generation. 'It's not just a return to the arena,' Lawrence said in a recent interview. 'It's a return to the soul of Panem.'
News18
6 days ago
- News18
‘Saw On Wikipedia Too': Akansha Ranjan Reacts To ‘American Actress' Tag
Akansha Ranjan opened up about her 'American actress' tag and revealed how she ended up in the Hindi film industry. Actress Akansha Ranjan, who is also Alia Bhatt's BFF, recently garnered much appreciation for her performance in the comedy-drama, Gram Chikitsalay. Previously, the actress has also appeared in multiple Hindi projects, including Guilty, Monica, O My Darling, Jigra and Decoded, among others. Despite this, she has been known as an American actress. The actress now cleared the air about the same in a recent interview. In a candid conversation on a podcast for Digital Commentary, Akansha Ranjan was asked about her 'American actress' status. To this, the actress immediately responded in affirmation, mentioning, 'Haan haan maine bhi dekha hai Wikipedia pe American actress. Meri mom ki puri family America se hai (Yes, ye,s I have also seen American actress tag on Wikipedia. My mother's entire family is from America), so I am an American citizen." In the same conversation, she then went on to explain how she ended up being part of the Hindi film industry. FYI: Akansha made her film debut in 2020 with the Kiara Advani-starrer movie Guilty, for which she even received a Filmfare OTT Awards nomination. Talking about the same, the actress discussed her actor father, Shashi Ranjan's roots and how he wished to see Akansha as an actress. 'Toh mere papa ko actor banana tha. Woh Haryana se hai. Young age se agar hum kuch bhi (So my father wanted to make me an actor. He is from Haryana. From a young age, if I said anything) like dhai lana, 'Dhai?? Dahi hota hai (It is yoghurt)," she shared. She continued, 'Mtlb humko tok rahe hai. Toh humari diction, humari pronunciation bahut bahut achchi rahe chuki hai kyunki papa mtlb ghar se bahar bhej nhi rahe hai. Like it was very like 'Hindi actress kaise banogi? Hindi nhi aati.' (I mean, I was being interrupted. So my diction, my pronunciation, has remained very good because my father was not sending me out of the house. Like it was very like 'How will you become a Hindi actress? You don't know Hindi)." The actress further talked about being roped into the film. She said, 'I signed the show very late. Just 3-4 weeks before the shoot. Agar thora bhi off huya, thora bhi prep jyada nhi huya ho aur off lage toh galiya toh hum sab khayenge. (If even a little bit of preparation is not done and it seems off, then we all will be abused)." She added, 'Phir teen hafte, har roj agar main kahungi ki 'Rahul mujhe ye samaj nhi aa raha.' Woh bolega, 'Kya?' 'Rahul humein samaj nhi aaya. Please batayiye.' Mtlb woh bhi phir humara shuru ho gaya. Teen hafte aise prep karke. (Then for three weeks, every day, if I say that 'Rahul, I am not able to understand this.' He will say, 'What?' 'Rahul, I did not understand. Please tell me.' Meaning that it also started again for us. After preparing like this for three weeks)." Directed by Rahul Pandey, the television series also stars Amol Parashar, Anandeshwar Dwivedi and Vinay Pathak in key roles. Created by Deepak Kumar Mishra and Arunabh Kumar and produced by TVF, Gram Chikitsalay premiered on May 9 on Prime Video. Coming to her personal life, Akansha was born to Shashi Ranjan, an actor and director from FTII and Anu Ranjan, the Founder of The Indian Television Academy. Shashi has also appeared in several films. Looking ahead, Akansha will next appear in the Telugu and Tamil bilingual science fiction action thriller film, MaayaOne, a sequel to the 2017 movie Maayavan. First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Scroll.in
17-07-2025
- Scroll.in
Is there any hope for the internet? A sociologist imagines an optimistic answer in her new book
In 2001, social theorist bell hooks warned about the dangers of a loveless zeitgeist. In ' All About Love: New Visions,' she lamented 'the lack of an ongoing public discussion … about the practice of love in our culture and in our lives.' Back then, the internet was at a crossroads. The dot-com crash had bankrupted many early internet companies, and people wondered if the technology was long for this world. The doubts were unfounded. In only a few decades, the internet has merged with our bodies as smartphones and mined our personalities via algorithms that know us more intimately than some of our closest friends. It has even constructed a secondary social world. Yet as the internet has become more integrated in our daily lives, few would describe it as a place of love, compassion and cooperation. Study after study describes how social media platforms promote alienation and disconnection – in part because many algorithms reward behaviours like trolling, cyberbullying and outrage. Is the internet's place in human history cemented as a harbinger of despair? Or is there still hope for an internet that supports collective flourishing? Algorithms and alienation I explore these questions in my new book, Attention and Alienation. In it, I explain how social media companies' profits depend on users investing their time, creativity and emotions. Whether it's spending hours filming content for TikTok or a few minutes crafting a thoughtful Reddit comment, participating on these platforms takes work. And it can be exhausting. Even passive engagement – like scrolling through feeds and 'lurking' in forums – consumes time. It might feel like free entertainment – until people recognise they are the product, with their data being harvested and their emotions being manipulated. Blogger, journalist and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow coined the term ' enshittification ' to describe how experiences on online platforms gradually deteriorate as companies increasingly exploit users' data and tweak their algorithms to maximise profits. For these reasons, much of people's time spent online involves dealing with toxic interactions or mindlessly doomscrolling, immersed in dopamine-driven feedback loops. This cycle is neither an accident nor a novel insight. Hate and mental illness fester in this culture because love and healing seem to be incompatible with profits. In his 2009 book Envisioning Real Utopias, the late sociologist Erik Olin Wright discusses places in the world that prioritise cooperation, care and egalitarianism. Wright mainly focused on offline systems like worker-owned cooperatives. But one of his examples lived on the internet: Wikipedia. He argued that Wikipedia demonstrates the ethos 'from each according to ability, to each according to need' – a utopian ideal popularised by Karl Marx. Wikipedia still thrives as a nonprofit, volunteer-run bureaucracy. The website is a form of media that is deeply social, in the literal sense: People voluntarily curate and share knowledge, collectively and democratically, for free. Unlike social media, the rewards are only collective. There are no visible likes, comments or rage emojis for participants to hoard and chase. Nobody loses and everyone wins, including the vast majority of people who use Wikipedia without contributing work or money to keep it operational. Building a new digital world Wikipedia is evidence of care, cooperation and love hiding in plain sight. In recent years, there have been more efforts to create nonprofit apps and websites that are committed to protecting user data. Popular examples include Signal, a free and open-source instant messaging service, and Proton Mail, an encrypted email service. These are all laudable developments. But how can the internet actively promote collective flourishing? What if Wikipedia were less the exception, and more the norm? In Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want, sociologist Ruha Benjamin points to a way forward. She tells the story of Black TikTok creators who led a successful cultural labour strike in 2021. Many viral TikTok dances had originally been created by Black artists, whose accounts, they claimed, were suppressed by a biased algorithm that favoured white influencers. TikTok responded to the viral #BlackTikTokStrike movement by formally apologising and making commitments to better represent and compensate the work of Black creators. These creators demonstrated how social media engagement works – and that workers have the power to demand equitable conditions and fair pay. This landmark strike showed how anyone who uses social media companies that profit off the work, emotions and personal data of their users – whether it's TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram or Reddit – can become organised. Meanwhile, there are organisations devoted to designing an internet that promotes collective flourishing. Sociologist Firuzeh Shokooh Valle provides examples of worker-owned technology cooperatives in her 2023 book, In Defense of Solidarity and Pleasure: Feminist Technopolitics in the Global South. She highlights the Sulá Batsú co-op in Costa Rica, which promotes policies that seek to break the stranglehold that negativity and exploitation have over internet culture. 'Digital spaces are increasingly powered by hate and discrimination,' the group writes, adding that it hopes to create an online world where 'women and people of diverse sexualities and genders are able to access and enjoy a free and open internet to exercise agency and autonomy, build collective power, strengthen movements, and transform power relations.' In Los Angeles, there's Chani, Inc., a technology company that describes itself as 'proudly' not funded by venture capitalists. The Chani app blends mindfulness practices and astrology with the goal of simply helping people. The app is not designed for compulsive user engagement, the company never sells user data, and there are no comments sections. What would social media look like if Wikipedia were the norm instead of an exception? To me, a big problem in internet culture is the way people's humanity is obscured. People are free to speak their minds in text-based public discussion forums, but the words aren't always attached to someone's identity. Real people hide behind the anonymity of user names. It isn't true human interaction. In Attention and Alienation, I argue that the ability to meet and interact with others online as fully realised, three-dimensional human beings would go a long way toward creating a more empathetic, cooperative internet. When I was 8 years old, my parents lived abroad for work. Sometimes we talked on the phone. Often I would cry late into the night, praying for the ability to 'see them through the phone.' It felt like a miraculous possibility – like magic. I told this story to my students in a moment of shared vulnerability. This was in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the class was taking place over videoconferencing. In these online classes, one person talked at a time. Others listened. It wasn't perfect, but I think a better internet would promote this form of discussion – people getting together from across the world to share the fullness of their humanity. Efforts like Clubhouse have tapped into this vision by creating voice-based discussion forums. The company, however, has been criticised for predatory data privacy policies. What if the next iteration of public social media platforms could build on Clubhouse? What if they brought people together and showcased not just their voices, but also live video feeds of their faces without harvesting their data or promoting conflict and outrage? Raised eyebrows. Grins. Frowns. They're what make humans distinct from increasingly sophisticated large language models and artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT. After all, is anything you can't say while looking at another human being in the eye worth saying in the first place? Aarushi Bhandari is Assistant Professor of Sociology, Davidson College.
