Rachel Zegler doesn’t have to fight to the death for a televised competition in a post-apocalyptic world.

But she does have a little something in common with Lucy Gray Baird.

They’re both proud of where they come from. They both became public figures in their teens.

“They also really love to use their voice in a performance world and getting to sing and play guitar,” says Zegler, 22, from The London West Hollywood hotel.

“And I think that’s a really beautiful thing,” she tells NJ Advance Media. “So I hope they’d be friends.”

The actor’s long, dark hair cascades over the brown vertical stripes of her shimmering Missoni knitwear, which she’s paired with sand-colored Stuart Weitzman thigh-high boots for the press junket promoting “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”

Zegler and her onscreen character aren’t just singers — they can move an audience.

The New Jersey talent, who stars as Lucy in the “Hunger Games” prequel, which opens Friday, shot to fame when she was cast in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 take on “West Side Story.”

Zegler, who grew up in Clifton and started filming the movie musical when she was 17, won a Golden Globe for her lead performance as Maria, which showcased her voice on the biggest stage cinema could offer just two years after she graduated from high school. Zegler, who is Colombian American, became the first Latina actor to play the character in a movie.

In the “Hunger Games” prequel, Lucy Gray Baird, 16, a resident of the dystopian country of Panem, has just been chosen as tribute for District 12 — the same role taken on by Katniss Everdeen, the lead character played by Jennifer Lawrence in the franchise’s previous films. This means Lucy will either be killed or have to kill the other tributes as the gory action is filmed for the Capitol’s cameras and broadcast to the nation.

English actor Tom Blyth (”Billy the Kid” on MGM+) co-stars as young Coriolanus Snow, the tribute’s mentor, who is determined to see her survive the Hunger Games (Donald Sutherland played the older version of the character, the villainous president of Panem, in the other films).

In breaking the rules to get close to Lucy, he wants to intervene in ways other well-heeled mentors won’t. But he quickly sees she has her own secret weapon — her voice and how it can reach people.

Zegler’s conviction is clear and immediate as she sings Lucy’s songs.

It’s a big part of why the Jersey actor has broken through in such a remarkable way. Zegler’s striking, powerful voice launched her from viral high school musical star to the lead of big studio films. It wasn’t long before she was walking red carpets across the globe and presenting at the Oscars (the Academy had to be nudged when it came to that last one, but she got there in the end).

While “The Hunger Games” is Zegler’s first time leading a film franchise, it’s not her first role in one. And she’s got plenty more to come. Zegler has been anointed Disney’s Snow White in the upcoming live-action adaptation of the animated film from 1937.

A nightingale picks up an Appalachian twang

Zegler didn’t start, as many actors do, with bit parts or even meaty supporting roles — not on TV and not on film.

Playing Maria required her to go a step beyond the ingénue mold to make sure her voice would resound throughout the update of the classic, “Romeo and Juliet”-inspired story.

Zegler nailed the performance that would lead to her casting as the “Hunger Games” songbird. Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics for the 1957 Broadway production of “West Side Story,” even called her a nightingale prior to his death two weeks before the release of Spielberg’s film.

“I told her that I s--- a brick when I heard her voice. You just don’t hear voices like that in movies anymore,” EGOT winner Rita Moreno wrote of Zegler for Time magazine’s Time100 Next, published in September. The young actor was named to the 2023 edition of the list, which recognizes rising stars.

“A very important lesson I learned — being Latina in particular, which worked against me so much and for so long — is that you need to have the stuff to withstand all that and still remain a positive person,” Moreno wrote. “I know, without a doubt, Rachel has all that and more.”

Moreno, who won an Oscar in 1962 for playing Anita in the first “West Side Story” movie, starred alongside Zegler and Ansel Elgort (Tony) in Spielberg’s “West Side Story” (she also co-produced), which filmed in Paterson and Newark.

That was the story of star-crossed lovers and bloody clashes between rival gangs in 1950s New York.

“Hunger Games” is a tale of human slaughter as entertainment in a war-torn, authoritarian future.

Specifically, the 10th Hunger Games, as depicted in author Suzanne Collins’ 2020 prequel novel.

More: Rachel Zegler almost didn’t audition for ‘West Side Story.’ The new Maria on the role that changed her life.

The first “Hunger Games” movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence, was released in 2012, after the publication of Collins’ “Hunger Games” YA novel in 2008. “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” followed in 2013, then “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1″ in 2014 and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2″ in 2015.

Gary Ross (”Ocean’s 8″) directed the first film and Francis Lawrence (”I Am Legend”) helmed the next four. Lawrence also directed Zegler in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”

Zegler grew up as a theater kid, shining in musicals at Lodi’s Immaculate Conception High School. She was — and is — part of the “Hunger Games” fandom.

“It’s just a really nice way to feed ‘Hunger Games’ fans,” Zegler says of the prequel film, set 64 years before Katniss appears in the stories. “As a ‘Hunger Games’ fan myself, the fan base is really the reason we’re still sitting here 15 years post-release of the first book.”

In September, she met Jennifer Lawrence, Katniss herself — who Zegler calls a hero of her childhood — when the Oscar winner, a celebrity ambassador for Dior, attended the same runway show as her at Paris Fashion Week.

“Oh, goodness, she’s so gracious and wonderful and funny,” Zegler says. “It really was complete happenstance that we got to meet. I kind of felt a bit relieved that my performance was already in the can and ready to be released because I didn’t want any added pressure of trying to live up to any kind of expectations either put on by myself or by the general public, ‘cause comparison is inevitable, but it’s also the thief of joy.”

What would happen if Lucy Gray Baird from District 12 Met Rachel Anne Zegler from Clifton?

“I think they would actually get along pretty well,” Zegler says. “I like to think that I would get along pretty well with a majority of my characters even if we don’t always see eye to eye. I think the thing about Lucy Gray is that you never really know what you’re gonna get and I would probably feel very knowledgeable in her. I wonder if it’s a multiverse situation that I don’t know that I’ve played her yet in a movie. But I do feel like they would become very good friends. And they both love animals and nature.”

Like Katniss, the first hero of the “Hunger Games,” Lucy is the tribute from District 12, a poor community in Appalachia. Zegler’s character is a member of the Covey, a nomadic group of singers and performers.

Lucy, who has lost both of her parents, proudly wears her mother’s dress, which has a whimsical, cascading multicolored skirt (the work of Oscar-nominated costume designer Trish Summerville) that functions as a kind of visual resistance to oppressive authority in Panem.

“I think the most comforting thing she can think of for herself is that she will die wearing her mother’s clothes,” Zegler says. “It’s definitely a statement piece.”

Taking on the role meant learning, performing and recording original folk songs.

Lucy’s music was written by “Hunger Games” author Collins and produced by Grammy-winning Nashville producer Dave Cobb, known for his work with country, Americana and folk stars like Brandi Carlile, Sturgill Simpson and John Prine. She also teamed with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to develop a strong Appalachian twang.

“We were looking at references like Patsy Cline ... ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ (the 1980 biopic starring an Oscar-winning Sissy Spacek as country singer Loretta Lynn) ... it was kind of the final step in putting that character together,” Zegler says.

Lucy and Coryo, Rachel and Josh

Zegler filmed “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” in Poland.

She fell into an easy chemistry with Blyth, 28.

“We’ve been so fortunate to have this comfort with one another from day one,” Zegler says. “And that’s kind of the most important thing you can have with scene partners. And I feel really lucky to have had that with Tom. He’s so goofy, he makes me laugh and I don’t think either of us take ourselves too seriously when it comes to the fact that this is our job. We get to go to work and put on amazing costumes and wigs, and I get to play pretend.

“Getting to do work with somebody who cares so much about the material, as I do and as Tom does, it’s a really special thing that you don’t always come across. It really translates onto the screen, or at least, I hope it does. The relationship (between Lucy and Coriolanus, or “Coryo”) has so many different facets, and the dynamic can be a little bit tricky at times.”

Lucy is distrustful of authority and power, with good reason. From the jump, she eagerly fights back against corruption and greed, which can have dire consequences in a place like Panem. But she lets her guard down with Coryo. He wants to make her see that he isn’t just betting on her to win so he can secure his own future — he recognizes her humanity.

Zegler trusted Blyth as a co-star and collaborator who would make changes so they could both give their best.

“I felt the comfort of being able to go up to Tom and talk to him about if I felt like things weren’t working, or what would work better, and what language felt better in our mouths coming out to one another ... You can really only hope that when you jump onto a project that is so massive like this one is that you’ll get to also have those moments that kind of feel like you’re working on an arthouse film, and you’re kind of tweaking all of these different dialogue moments and these little moments of chemistry with your scene partner.”

Zegler’s real-life partner, her boyfriend Josh Andrés Rivera, also stars in the film as Sejanus Plinth, a mentor to another Hunger Games tribute.

Rivera, 28, and Zegler celebrated their two-year anniversary in October.

“You are the most grounded part of me,” she said of Rivera in an Instagram post dedicated to the milestone.

“I keep people that truly care about me around me to keep me grounded,” Zegler tells NJ Advance Media.

The actors, who dressed up as Daphne and Fred from “Scooby-Doo” for Halloween — Zegler’s golden doodle, Lenny, was Scooby — met working on “West Side Story” (he played Chino, Maria’s original date to the dance). Shortly before the film’s release in 2021, Zegler told NJ Advance Media that Rivera had become her best friend and her “rock.”

They were there for each other during the filming of “Songbirds and Snakes,” too.

“It was definitely a comforting presence to have on set,” she says.

Rivera shares many scenes with Blyth, Plinth’s peer in the film, but none with Zegler.

“I would go to set and get to watch him do scenes with Viola Davis (who plays Dr. Volumnia Gaul) which, as somebody who’s known Josh for so long now, for four years, it’s a moment of pride for me as his friend, first and foremost, to watch him do scenes with a great like Viola, and with Peter Dinklage (Casca Highbottom, creator of the Hunger Games) and with Jason Schwartzman (Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman, host of the Hunger Games),” Zegler says.

“And then, you know, as his girlfriend, it’s just a sense of pride. I’m so proud of him and his trajectory as an actor, whether it’s in projects that we do together or projects that we do apart. I’m really just team Josh from from day one.”

‘Jersey people find Jersey people’

Zegler also found company with fellow New Jerseyans on set.

Dinklage, whose Highbottom character is Dean of Panem’s Academy, grew up in Mendham.

“We did kind of bond over that fact,” she says of the four-time Emmy winner, 54, the titular Jersey-born superhero in the upcoming reimagining of “The Toxic Avenger.”

Hunter Schafer (Jules Vaughn in HBO’s ”Euphoria”), who plays Coryo’s cousin, Tigris Snow, was born in Trenton and raised in North Carolina (Zegler says the actor, 24, doesn’t remember as much from her younger years in Jersey).

“I always say — and Josh also makes fun of me for it all the time — that Jersey people find Jersey people all the time. There’s two types of people that find each other in the world, and it’s New Jerseyans and Colombians, and being both (her mother’s family hails from Colombia) I kind of was able to always scope out who were my homies.”

And this Jersey person found yet another Jersey person far from home, in Poland.

Christopher Surgent, the first assistant director on “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” (he also worked on three other “Hunger Games” films), is from the Jersey Shore. Not only that, but Zegler also discovered that he has a connection to her own family.

“When he was a teenager, he worked at the (Point Pleasant Beach) restaurant (The Lobster Shanty) that my cousin Beverly used to manage, so it all just kinda came full circle,” Zegler says.

After “West Side Story” and before her turn as “Hunger Games” tribute, Zegler starred as the goddess Anthea alongside Oscar winner Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu — who played her sisters — in DC superhero film “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” released in March.

Next year, she gives voice to lead character Princess Ellian in Netflix’s “Spellbound,” an animated movie from Skydance Animation (previously set for Apple TV+). Her co-stars include Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, Tony- and Emmy-winning actors Nathan Lane, John Lithgow and André De Shields, plus Jenifer Lewis (”Black-ish”) and Jordan Fisher (”To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You”).

There’s been plenty of chatter surrounding Zegler’s fairytale turn in “Snow White,” though the movie’s premiere (previously set for March 2024) has been pushed to 2025.

Disney announced the delay by sharing first-look photos showing the actor in a scene with CGI dwarfs. Wonder Woman Gal Gadot plays the Evil Queen. (Zegler is no stranger to long delays — because of the COVID-19 pandemic, “West Side Story” was also pushed a full year from 2020 to 2021.)

Zegler also has yet another release on deck, the 1999-set disaster comedy action flick “Y2K,” from “Saturday Night Live” alum Kyle Mooney in his feature directorial debut. The movie, whose cast includes Alicia Silverstone, filmed in Jersey (including Clark) earlier this year.

Her ever-expanding movie career is a lot, but Zegler doesn’t let it overwhelm her too much.

“I’m so grateful for every opportunity that I’ve had,” she says. “Everything is a learning experience, big or small. And I feel very grateful to be learning those lessons, whether it be in the public eye or in the privacy of my own home.

“It’s always a mission to give my younger self a big hug and invite her into this world in the gentlest way possible, and remember her when things are crazy, because they’re always crazy. This is a crazy life that I get to live and I feel so privileged to get to do it.”

“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is rated PG-13 and runs 2 hours and 37 minutes. The movie opens in theaters Friday, Nov. 17.

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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup.