Meet Mags, the Unlikely Breakout Star of 'Catching Fire'

Lynn Cohen and Sam Claflin in ‘Catching Fire’ (Photo: Lionsgate/Everett Collection)

When it comes to the 75th Hunger Games, Mags sticks out like a sore thumb. You see, she’s the oldest contestant by far, the lone elderly woman in the cruel Roman-like game that consists of mostly teen and pre-teen adversaries.

Best known for her role as Magda on “Sex and the City,” Lynn Cohen stands out as the senior-citizen competitor in “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”

Fiery she is. “I am wearing purple because it’s sexy,” a grinning Cohen told Yahoo Movies on the red carpet during the film’s recent L.A. premiere.

The saucy actress even alluded to a December-May crush on her hunky co-star, Sam Claflin. “I fell in love with him,” she said. “One of the very first scenes that we did I was sitting next to him — and to touch his sweet face.”

In the film, Mags and Finnick (Claflin) are close allies from District 4 — so close, in fact, that Finnick is willing to risk the disadvantage of carrying her while they set out to survive. And yes — for reasons we won’t spoil for you — Mags reaches over to Finnick’s face to give him a sweet, albeit grandmotherly, kiss. “He’s not a bow-wow,” she said of Claflin with a smirk, acknowledging the 27-year-old English actor’s exceptionally good looks.

Watch Lynn Cohen at the L.A. Premiere of ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’:

A Missouri native, Cohen is a late comer to film and television work — landing her first significant film role in Woody Allen’s 1993 comedy “Manhattan Murder Mystery.” Her career shifted into high gear only after her son went off to college, when she and her husband moved to New York — though she has been acting for more than 50 years, starting out in regional theater.

Cohen is a clear example that it’s never too late to reach for new heights. She has played a judge on “Law & Order,” worked with Steven Spielberg in 2005’s “Munich,” and acted again for Allen in 1997’s “Deconstructing Harry.” All the while, Cohen has been racking up more stage credits in New York and is set to appear in eight films following “Catching Fire.”

Cohen, far right, in ‘Sex and the City’ (Photo: Everett Collection)

In spite of her prolific, later-in-life career, Cohen has acknowledged that people only really recognize her as Miranda’s housemaid and nanny, Magda, from the popular HBO show, “Sex.” “I had literally no lines,” she joked in a 2009 interview, saying people would shout across crowds, “Magda!”

After this weekend’s monstrous opening of “Catching Fire,” her fan base will likely shrink their shout-outs down from “Magda!” to “Mags!”

“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is in theaters now.

Editor’s Note: Cohen, who prefers not to reveal her age, is listed on IMDb as being 80 years old, though Wikipedia lists her as being 69 years old.

Watch ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ Final Trailer: