In 2012, Emerson made her film debut in the science fiction adventure, The Hunger Games as the District 5 tribute, Foxface. In an interview, she explained how she auditioned for the role, "They had me come in and do a lot of reaction stuff — they’d map out a scenario for me and be like, “Okay, you stop here and look around and take it in and think about the complexity of it, but you’re scared at the same time,” but all with the face and without dialogue. It was a very unorthodox audition."