Hunger Casting: May the Odds be Ever in Their Favor

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Haven’t read it yet? Set aside an hour, and do so imme­di­ately. (No, really.) You will devour it, and it will be total YA, post-apocalyptic deli­cious­ness. Trust me.

Read it? Fan­tas­tic. I can now assume that you’ve spent every spare sec­ond since the news was announced unhealth­ily obsess­ing over cast­ing for the upcom­ing movie, like me and the rest of the world.

For the sake of The Shub, I’ve spent the past few weeks tear­ing through the young (and slightly older) Hol­ly­wood wilder­ness to find my dream cast­ing list for The Hunger Games. I wel­come any and all vehe­ment dis­agree­ments and fer­vent endorse­ments via the twit­ter­net (@fangirlshub) or the com­ments below.

Okay, here goes:

Kat­niss –> Saoirse Ronan

Full dis­clo­sure: I met Saiorse at a cock­tail event for Hanna a few months ago, and she may or may not have charmed the pants off of me. Per­sonal smit­ten­ness aside, how­ever, Saiorse’s act­ing expe­ri­ence cer­tainly fits the HG bill: For Hanna, she did inten­sive, phys­i­cal com­bat train­ing to play a char­ac­ter that was essen­tially a teenage assas­sin who lived in the wilder­ness while being men­tored by a rene­gade, morally shady father fig­ure. For reals.

I talk to a lot of teen girls in my day job, and one of the most strik­ing things about Saiorse is that, up close, she has the face of a 14-year-old (she’s actu­ally 16), and when she speaks, she has the verging-on-disarming seri­ous­ness of a 40-year-old. She’s one of the few actresses whose names have been thrown around that I really believe could bring the right amount of emo­tional lay­er­ing to the role.

Saiorse = kick ass, Kat­niss = kick ass, Sairose + Kat­niss = SO MUCH KICKASSNESS.

Haymitch –> Eric Bana

Fine, I’m not sure that drunk, dirty, and bel­liger­ent come to mind when I think of Bana, but I do think him and Saiorse have such amaz­ing chem­istry that I pretty much want them to be in every movie together, always. And very impor­tantly, if he grew his hair out, I’m com­pletely con­vinced Bana could pull out an awe­some Viggo-as-Aragorn for Haymitch.

Run­ner Up: Liam Neeson

Haymitch as a tall, long haired, drunk, Irish Jedi mas­ter? I know you want to see that as badly as I do.

Pres­i­dent Snow –> Sam Rockwell

Rock­well is a pro at por­tray­ing dark, vaguely comedic char­ac­ters that wob­ble on the brink of a com­plete, psy­chotic melt­down. This includes the great­est role of his career, of course: Zaphod Bee­ble­brox from Hitchhiker’s Guide. He also would look just the right amount of incred­i­bly creepy with white hair and white eyebrows.

Cinna –> Cil­lian Murphy

The sec­ond Cinna was intro­duced in this book, Cil­lian Murphy’s face popped up in my brain and I couldn’t get it out of my head through­out the entire series. For the sake of this expla­na­tion, I will pre­tend that it was for a rea­son other than the fact that I prob­a­bly sub­con­sciously rec­og­nized that their names are really sim­i­lar. Or should I say cimilar.

My want­ing Mur­phy for the role of Cinna hon­estly doesn’t have much to with the other stuff I’ve seen him in (though, the dude cer­tainly has the act­ing chops). It’s more because he really just feels like Cinna to me. Mur­phy tends to be cast in villain-type-roles and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that his face and voice are this eerie—almost uncomfortable—mix of extremely del­i­cate, incred­i­bly intense, and a lit­tle off-kilter. Adding a ton of warmth to the char­ac­ter, his usual shtick would really work.

And most impor­tantly, as was demon­strated in Break­fast on Pluto, he looks really good in makeup. REALLY good.

Run­ner Up: Ian Somerhalder

Even if you aren’t obsessed with the Vam­pire Diaries (side note: and you really should be), you gotta admit this guy is made to wear all sorts of leather and eye­liner.
 

Peeta –-> Jamie Bell

I’m not mar­ried to this choice, but phys­i­cally, Billy Elliot Jamie Bell fits the bill for me. And he’s a good lit­tle actor. But could be too old? Thoughts?

Gale –-> A young, extra-angsty, Aidan Turner look-a-like

I’ve thought long and hard about this one, and I’ve decided there are no dark-haired, angry dudes in Hol­ly­wood (that are young enough) that I’m really excited about right now. I’m root­ing for some smoldery-eyed unknown.

Effie –-> Kristin Chenoweth

She actu­ally is Effie. In real life. The end.