Whitney Peak Is Not Online But About to Be Everywhere

Whitney Peak was walking home late at night, headphones on, when she saw the fight. A group of people were arguing loudly across the street, and things were getting physical. She ducked in and out of a bodega and was steps from her front door when somebody grabbed her arm. It was one of the women who’d been shouting down the block, now yelling in Whitney’s face.“You’re that girl from that movie! Can I get a photo?” Everyone crowded into a group selfie, recounts Whitney now, smiling into a cup of coffee. “And then they all went back across the street and continued the fight,” she says.Whitney, now 23, first broke out in HBO Max’s 2021 Gossip Girl reboot with a lead role as scholarship student Zoya Lott. She went on to play the teenage Becca in Hocus Pocus 2 and has since starred alongside Sabrina Carpenter in the singer’s “Nonsense” video and started a partnership with Chanel. It’s a résumé that means sometimes people pause fistfights to speak to her, and sometimes packs of adolescents charge after her through airports.“There was a group of 13-year-old girls, and they were adorable,” she says of another recent encounter. “I was walking ahead of them with my headphones on and they ran up behind me, so all I could feel was the stomping.”In hindsight, it’s all been a preview of the fandom Whitney is about to meet with The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. In the film, she plays Lenore Dove Baird, a fierce, musical girl whose great love is Haymitch Abernathy. (Fans know Haymitch as Katniss Everdeen’s weary mentor, but in this story, he’s a teenager who is separated from Lenore Dove when he’s forced into being a tribute for the 50th Hunger Games.) But despite all the excitement around the movie—and Whitney’s nearly half a million Instagram followers—she says she’s not super online, and she insists, “I don’t carry myself as a public figure. I never think about my career as a whole—I feel like I just got here.”Even so, the fuss over this latest role will undoubtedly still shape her life in some way. Maybe that’s the strange bargain of playing characters people love: You can choose not to live online, but the work follows you into the world.Richard KernDress Chanel, gloves stylist’s own. I recently saw Rachel Zegler in your Instagram comments cheering you on. In the last Hunger Games movie, she played Lucy Gray Baird, who fans speculate is related to your character. Did you know each other before you got the role?No, I met her for the first time two months ago on the street. We live in close neighborhoods. She was just walking by, and I was like, “Rachel??”No way.She was like, “This is crazy how we’re meeting.” I asked, “How about lunch or something?” but she was running back home. When the casting announcement came out, she sent me a DM and put out a really sweet message.1 Her saying that on the internet was big, because obviously people love her movie and The Hunger Games. It was very generous of her and speaks levels to her character.1. Rachel tagged Whitney in a post where she wrote, “I know she’s gonna do the Baird name proud.”People want the casting director of the movie to win awards given your resemblance to each other. Rachel and I were sending texts back and forth about that. I was like, “It never occurred to me that we looked alike.” But seeing the side-by-side pictures, I was like, “Wow. We really could be family.” It’s encouraging to me that I have her preparing me for the overwhelm that comes with joining such a franchise. She didn’t want it to be scary but wanted me to know it can get pretty intense. I get emotional because I hadn’t really let myself think about it, and then talking to her, it comes to the surface. I’m such a fan of hers. And this freaking cast is so insane.What was your first moment like with your Haymitch, Joseph Zada? We met in person for the first time at a chemistry read,2 and I walked in trying to be normal, and then Joe just came in like, “What’s up?” and put his phone and his cigarettes on the table, totally relaxed. It was immediately easy. The next time I saw him, we were shooting in Germany and he drove by our hotel in this black sprinter van, screaming my name out the window.Our actual first scene together, we shot in this beautiful countryside field, and I remember being really, really nervous. But by the end, we were just playing. It made everything concrete between our characters and the two of us. Joe is such a goofball and really loves to laugh, which is one of my favorite traits in people. You can’t be self-serious when everybody is keeping it light. It’s kind of like, Tap in.2. Whitney’s team has a running bit about her post-audition self-assessments: If she texts, “I bombed that,” they assume she got the job. The one time she felt an audition went really well, she didn’t get it. “I really don’t think it’s humility,” she says. “I have no fucking clue what went on in there.” How did the two of you approach taking Lenore Dove and Haymitch’s love story from page to screen? We did a lot of prep. I remember we would hang out pretty much every single day and just run the scenes over and over.You’ve been in a lot of beloved franchises between this, Hocus Pocus 2, and Gossip Girl. What’s scarier? Stepping into something nobody is invested in yet or something millions already love? It’s one step at a time for me. I don’t really read reviews or comments or messages, and I’m not online very much. Obviously, you still care what people think.3 You want people to like your work. I feel like I live a pretty chill life4 considering my profession, but I do lean into it, and I can be freaked out and overwhelmed but still do it. And I’m going to tell you with this one, I was really freaked out.3. Whitney also finds it difficult to watch herself perform. Once a project is finished, she says, “It’s no longer yours,” and she prefers to let it go. She’s making an exception for Sunrise on the Reaping though: “There’s so much of it that I didn’t see.” She is excited to watch but expects to be covering her eyes when her scenes come on.4. Her approach to staying chill is refreshingly simple: “When I’m not working, I really prioritize being in my life and in my relationships.” Her non-Panem agenda includes reading and catching up with family and friends, two of whom are expecting a baby. Whitney is already halfway through knitting some tiny yellow clothes.How so?My PR team would probably be like, “No, shut up,” but I was! I don’t mean to be self-effacing or self-deprecating. I’m just being completely honest that I felt way in over my head with this. When something just feels so much larger than anything you could have conceived and it’s something people love, with a character who is really important to the story, and it’s just little old me doing all of that…I had to not think about it and just do it.Richard KernAll clothing and belt Chanel, all jewelry Chanel Fine Jewelry. How did you ground yourself before that first day of filming? I let myself make a fool of myself. I had to sing in front of people, and I did it really badly just to get that out of the way and get a good laugh out of everybody. And then I felt like I could just kind of go. I was also listening to a lot of music: Irma Thomas, Bettye Swann, Kendra Morris.That’s very Lenore Dove of you.I’m a huge music listener. But I wouldn’t say that I can actually play. I have a keyboard and a guitar that I fiddle with. I just kind of strum and see what sounds nice. I learned how to play the accordion...well, I learned how to play one song on the accordion.5 I’m a perfectionist, so I was really overdoing it. It’s all I wanted to do every single day.5. There’s sweet irony in saying, “I can’t really play any instruments,” and then rattling off three you own and enjoy. But this is on-brand for Whitney, who is humble about her many talents.What do you and Lenore Dove have most in common?Her relationship to the people she loves. We both value that a lot, and we both value community a lot. And there are so many ways I want to be more like her. She’s very outspoken, and she’s very, very self-possessed. There’s no second thought in her mind before she jumps into action. She trusts her gut, and she just cannot stand to watch anybody be in pain or be treated poorly. And she takes up space! I tend to retreat into myself. I’m just more of a thinker than a talker.Is there anything else our readers should keep in mind before seeing Sunrise on the Reaping?I’ll just say this: Bring a box of tissues.Read All of The Hunger Games Cover StoriesLead image: Dress Vaquera. Cover: Pants and belt Chanel, ring Chanel Fine Jewelry, pin stylist’s own. Styled by Chloe Grace Press. Hair by Lacy Redway for TRESemmé. Makeup by Raisa Flowers. Manicure by Honey for Manucurist Paris. Set design by Elaine Winter. Produced by No Inc.