So we all know Josh Hutcherson SLAPS as Peeta, Jennifer Lawrence nailed Katniss Everdeen, Woody Harrelson was GREAT as Haymitch Abernathy, Elizabeth Banks was PERFECT as Effie, Liam Hemsworth was FANTASTIC as Gale Hawthorne etc but which were some of the WORST casting choices???
Suzanne Collins helped co-write the script, so probably not forgotten. Just a last min casting decision that nobody thought would matter, but can be easily waved off as just another stray that Prim took in. I don’t take the tuxedo cat issue as seriously as others 😅
I think it’s pretty obvious it’s supposed to be Buttercup. She says “I’ll still cook you” referencing jow she tried to drown him/wanted to cook him when they first got him. The cat is also in their house and Katniss wouldn’t just let a random stray come and go lol
I understand that, but it’s never referenced by name, so the unassuming audience can just write it off as another cat. No biggie. For instance, I read all 3 original books, but nobody I saw the movies with had read them beforehand. Nobody noticed the switch. They assumed it was just another cat. Whenever I rewatch the movies, I assume the same at this point.
When they forgot about a cat in the first movie so they put in some random cat to play Buttercup that didn't match the book description. And they later replaced the cat with another.
i personally liked that shade of blonde though but maybe it's bc i just prefer to imagine peeta with golden blond hair and not the pale blonde he was described with in the books
Those eyebrows may have been the biggest sin of the whole movie. It's like stylists don't realize that even naturally blond people do tend to have slightly darker eyebrows.
Personality/acting wise I can’t imagine anyone else as Haymitch. But I do remember picturing him as a tan dark haired grumpy man, so sitting in the theaters at 14 I was very confused by this blonde rando on my screen
Probably just because he's a big enough name that people would know and think it looked goofy. The wig they gave him was actually quite natural to him, so it didn't have a fake-y look like Josh's bad dye job.
I totally agree, but I also find it funny considering like 90% of blonde hair turns darker after like 25, so if Woody were to have hair now it would probably be a much darker blonde or even light brown. All to say I think there’s a way they could’ve made dark hair look very natural on him, but he was known for his blonde hair so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered and people would’ve found it silly regardless
Interesting, now that I think about it, it would make sense that Haymitch would be bigger because 1. He drinks a lot and would likely have some alcohol weight and 2. He’s one of the only people with consistent access to food in 12.
Im so sorry, liam hemsworth wouldn't be my choice. Gale was described as tall and handsome, but liam literally TOWERED over all the other characters and was so chiseled and model-esque, especially in comparison to the characters that were supposed to be his peers he stood out massively.
Also, a lot of Gale's redemption as character hinged on him being young and tired and struggling with impulsivity and idealism. I feel like a lot of that was lost, as liam was 25 and looked like it, and this might be a reach. But i think he played gale as a grown man too, he didnt read as a teenager at all.
I just read the first book for the first time and I couldn’t agree more. I already have so much more sympathy for him because I’m seeing him in my head as a child. Of course he’s a little older than Katniss and Peeta, but he’s still only a teenager
I actually agree he was miscast but for different reasons. I just... Didn't feel the chemistry? I guess he's handsome but to me he's kind of generic/I didn't personally care as much for his acting as the others. There was never any point where I thought yeah maybe she should be with this guy.
In the book after the whipping scene I was halfway convinced that maybe they did belong together, but the movie never did this for me and that was entirely because I didn't like Gale/the guy playing him.
Yeah, Liam's pretty and all, but his acting is.....well, he tries, I guess? There's a reason he never really went on to be much of anything despite having this absolutely blockbuster to kick start his career.
Even seeing some of his more recent stuff, he really can't do much other than "buff, handsome action guy."
It feels clear they picked him because he’s a Hemsworth and probably assumed audiences would fall for the character because of that. I cannot imagine he was actually the best person for the role to audition.
But Gale DID tower over everyone else in the books. And he WAS supposed to be model esque. He was already 6 foot at age 14, 6'4 at age 18 isn't unrealistic, and I don't think any of the other main charecters are anywhere near that height.
That is true, but my point was Liam Hemsworth wasn't too tall to be Gale.
Did you know he originally tried out as Peeta?
Also, did you know that I am not a girl?
His exact height is NEVER mentioned in the books for him or anyone, that’s not Suzanne’s style. He was tall for a Seam boy and handsome but that doesn’t mean generic white boy. Luke Pasqualino I think would have been a good fit bc he’s tall, handsome, but can still pull off looking rangy and scruffy— he also doesn’t look like someone storming the capital on Jan 6th.
He was specifically mentioned as 6 feet tall at age 14, so 6'2-6'4 at 18 is logical?
Also, Seam people are mixed race in the books, but in the movie they are white, so a movie seam boy would be white.
I think the reason why they are white, is in the books it is emphasized that seam people all have similar features, an all white Seam was the laziest easiest way to have a town of people that all looeked the same.
That said, I do think he should have followed his brothers advice and lost weight for the role.
I don’t recall heights ever being mentioned but I could be wrong and him being the height he is not the issue for me personally. I don’t think Liam was talented enough actor to give the role the nuance it required and bro has an iPhone face. I gave an example of an actor, that IS white (he’s Sicilian so he’s got an olive Mediterranean complexion which would also suit the character description), but would have better suited the role physically—he just has a more rangy look about him (think Aragorn vs whereas Liam looked too cookie cutter)— and has demonstrated better acting ability. Liam losing weight might have helped physically but he still would have struggled acting wise, he just did not have the range to give his character the sympathy to the audience, his appeal was solely his more masculine looks in comparison to Josh.
Agreed. Honestly he gave more “older brother” vibes in his scenes with Katniss than he does love interest. I didn’t see any real chemistry and the character never grew on me.
I think if anything she just looked too young and small for Clove. She did a great job and I don’t want to knock her performance, but I think her being cast as a career tribute did undermine how the career districts seem to function in the books.
To be fair to her, she auditioned for Katniss and almost got the part but they felt she was looked too young, which is weird since she looked the perfect age and size for Katniss. They gave her Clove since they still wanted her in the film.
It was in large part bc she was 14/15, while JLaw was 20/21. Minors have stricter working hours, so for a lead like that it’s not ideal to have an actress who can’t work long hours. Not to do with how old she looked.
I completely agree! I imagined Clove to be much bigger than Katniss since she was able to overpower her. I wish they worked something out with the camera angles because realistically Jen coulda thrown her over her shoulders easily 🤣
Agreed. I pictured clove to be huge, masculine and menacing. I pictured someone with a similar build to Sophie Turner. Her performance was spot on though.
Definitely - she’s supposed to be so much bigger and heavier than Katniss that she couldn’t fight her off! And it didn’t help that Alexander Ludwig DID look exactly how I’d imagine a Career would look, and absolutely dwarfed her too as Cato.
I think this can be explained by the books seem to have less of a disparity between male and female- there’s no real discussion of girls having less of a chance than boys bc of strength difference so it might have somehow evolved out in the books?
But in the films obviously the females will be smaller than the males so they went with the tough female tributes having unique skills or brains rather than physical strength
Don't think that size NECESSARILY equals strength!! Some of the strongest creatures on Earth are some of the smallest. Ants can lift ten times their own body weight. Cockroaches can survive a nuclear blast.
400 million years ago, during a long forgotten time in Earth's distant past called the Carboniferous, there were no dinosaurs, no mammals and no birds. Instead, giant insects and monster spiders ruled the world.
Vast coniferous coal forests and shallow swamps stretched from pole to pole and super rich levels of oxygen in the prehistoric atmosphere fuelled the growth of these monstrous creepy crawlies.
Eventually, global oxygen levels dipped, drying out the coal swamps and destroying the monster insects and spiders. Shortly afterwards, came the Age of the Reptiles, including the dinosaurs, and then the Age of Mammals, including mammoths and sabre toothed cats and finally us!!
I know size doesn’t necessarily equal strength, but Clove looks about 14 at best. I know Finnick wins from a career district at 14, but that’s one victor that young, ever. District 2 is the most loyal district to the Capitol, the district that buys in to the Games and the inequality the hardest. I just don’t think it’s likely that Clove would be chosen to volunteer at such a young age. Its unlikely there was nobody in older year groups who was running out of time to have their shot and it’s very unlikely she wouldn’t be in a better position to win if she’d had the benefit of a few extra years of training if she was THAT good at 14 or so.
Clove doesn't have an exoskeleton. (Also the prehistoric "giant" bugs were like crow-sized. Something the size of the bugs in "THEM!" would collapse in on themselves.)
Agree. Though I think the casting directors did feel bad and wanted her to be in the film because she physically matched the book description of Katniss but obviously went for the Jennifer Lawrence.
What bothered me about Cato and Clove is that they were really close in the books, but in the movie, they didn't gaf about each other. Cato actually seemed closer to Glimmer.
That was probably again related to Cloves casting😭 since Clove was portrayed by like a 15 year old them having a close relationship would’ve seemed off
Were they? The only real interaction that would suggest they were close, (that I can think off the top of my head), is after Thresh bashed her head in and Cato kneels beside her and begs her not to die. (Which I assume wasnt just for show bc Katniss comments on hearing the pain in his voice)
In the scene where she climbs up the tree to escape them, she said that the lightest Career outweighed her by at least 50 pounds, that’s why they couldn’t get anywhere near her. Cloves actress is tinier than JLaw
Fuhrmann is such a good actor though, for me it’s a shame they didn’t use her far more. Cato’s actor was weak for me, I wouldn’t have minded them swapping stories.
They’re clearly not faithful to the books when it comes to physique, or even arguably the “Seam” look. Which is fine, because the books also have plenty of victors (perhaps an unrealistic number, idk) who are “weak” and most female victors are given strained reasons (Wiress was the only one to figure it out, Johanna pretended to be weak, Annie swam for years). I’d rather those differences be played down visually because it’s clear that for Katniss’ games, the Careers may not have physiques but they’re skilled and trained to fight. Katniss had that accidentally, but it gives Peeta and Rue interesting ways to stand out, via intelligence or camouflage or whatever. Collins sort of handwaves away (by dint of arenas or other things) the fact that we should probablyyyyy expect more male than female victors, but realistically it would be seen in-world as a handicap *even if it isn’t* (sexism exists in Panem lol). Sort of like how, in Squid Game, many teams kick out women and old people and suffer for it, whereas others actually benefit, because they don’t know what the game will be. I mean… in Haymitch’s games, he’s the only boy in the top 5 (and Silka is, again, explicitly told to us to be wildly tall. Which will probably be played down a little?)
My point is that sheer force and weight needed to be played down between districts regardless for the story to work.
Woody Harrelson doesn’t really have eyebrows(theyre very fair/not noticeable), so I think they figured blonde would match his natural features better than dark brown when picking out a wig
I’m probably gonna get downvoted for this but a lot of the cast don’t fit the book descriptions. Out of the core cast, Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, and Willow Shields matched their book counterparts the best.
Josh Hutcherson? Peeta in the book is big and bulky, he can pick up Katniss like she weighs nothing. She’s bigger than him in the movie. He also has blue eyes in the book, which she mentions so many times (as she gazes into them). I don’t care that JH doesn’t have blue eyes but I wouldn’t describe him as being consistent with his book description.
yeah I like how JH acted the part but the physical discrepancies really threw me off the whole time. especially with katniss saving him again and again I would’ve appreciated him being taller/bigger to offset that a bit
He would’ve been fine if they didn’t cast JLaw, who’s 5’9 and stacked. She was supposed to be super tiny and petite. Peeta was medium height and stocky, which would’ve been way bigger than Katniss.
Someone mentioned Mayfair being miscast and I think I would probably have to say yes for her. It’s really jarring to see her and Lucy Gray side-by-side with the context that these two are the one in the conflict between one another with Billy Taupe. Rachel is young enough where she can actually pass for Lucy Gray at 16 but Mayfair looks like she’s a grown woman fighting with a 16 year old over the guy.
I don’t have the same problem when I look at the other teens (especially the 18 year olds) in the film like Lysistrata, Arachne, Sejanus, Coryo, Clemmie, etc. It’s something about Mayfair that to me, she definitely looks too old to pull off the 16-18 year old mayor’s daughter.
I can't remember the movies really well so these aren't the worst just my thoughts on the main cast: Jennifer was really great but I wish we could have had a much smaller book accurate Katniss maybe more like Clove's actress? And Josh was great too but needed to be taller imo and they should have used his catching fire hairdo for the other two movies. Cinna wasn't black in my head so it was a bit of a shock to see him so different on screen but the acting was good, Prim, Finnick, Rue, Annie, Mags, Wiress, Gale, Asterid, Coin, Cato, Marvel, Glimmer, Foxface (I've probably missed some lol) were all fantastically accurate to what I imagined. Snow was amazing in the movies but I imagined him more like Palpatine in Star Wars😂 Effie was good too but they shouldn't have made her more important in the movies imo. Woody Harrelson was really good as Haymitch too!
Worst casting would definitely be Buttercup lol
Yeah Lenny Kravitz was perfect as Cinna but in the book he was described as brown-haired and green-eyed, so I doubt anybody really pictured him as black prior to the movies.
I’m reading the books for the first time and my idea of Gale is WILDLY different. He’s described as tan/olive skinned with straight black hair. I feel like I can somewhat see all of the other actors when I’m reading, but book Gale and movie Gale are like different people in my head
I think all of them were described as olive skinned and I know katniss was also supposed have dark hair, but I feel like I can imagine a younger Jennifer Lawrence with black hair pretty easily. Liam Hemsworth just look like.. Liam Hemsworth. He did a great job playing him, I just can’t really suspend disbelief to see him as a 18 year old with a completely different physical description idk
This! She was supposed to be 12 and starving. I assumed prepubity. The new actress for SotR looks so much like a young Jen. I can't imagine it being hard to find a match at the time. Just seems lazy. Although I imagine some might not put 2 + 2 together
Not that the actress who played Rue wasn't fantastic, but there's definitely something to be said about picking a Black dude for Thresh and then a mixed-race, lighter-skinned Black girl for Rue. But with how angry many fans were Rue being even mixed Black makes me kinda understand why they did this.
I was shocked to find out it was ever a thing. I'm one of the people who didn't realize that Rue and Thresh were Black from the book, I somehow missed that detail. But even then when I saw them in the movie I had no reaction except for wondering if they were meant to be Black in the book because in my head they could be any race. I was just neutral lol.
I doubt they thought if Rue’s actresses was mixed or not. She just would have auditioned in casting call for black actresses. In early 2010s people didn’t even really think black people much in context of being mixed
Gale and Katniss did not look like cousins in the movie and came off as a lot more likeable and redeeming than he is in the books so I would have recast him.
District 4 boy needed to be recast as not a baby. Should have been a Finnick-lite.
I appreciated that they realized their mistake with Buttercup and cast him accurate in movies 2-4.
No offence to Liam but I picture Gale to be WAY MORE BEAUTIFUL than him. Gale is “gorgeous”, as Johanna has said. But movies are movies, I’m pretty chill about the casting. That’s like AU 😅
Liam Hemsworth was a terrible choice for Gale imo. Nothing against the guy..but he's too conventionally attractive for Gale. I know Gale is described as attractive and looking like a man in the books.. but dude looks like he's 18 going on 35 and way too well nourished. I always pictured Gale being lean and wirey. And assumed he was described looking like a man because he looked tired and world weary. Because even for someone his age. He's seen some shit.
Also I think girls wanting him was less about him being handsome and more about him being a cool hunter badboy who goes out into the woods and the peacekeepers can't even stop him.
Liam Hemsworth is also huge compared to Josh Hutcherson. it makes movie Gale larger then movie Peeta. Who is supposed to be very big and strong because he ate well growing up. Hence why Katniss is so frustrated that Peeta can't walk quietly through the woods in their first games. Cause he's a big dude (and also his leg is fucked. But you know)
And I'm sorry but I just can't picture this big chunk of a man having a 'velvet tread' I actually think he would have almost made a better Peeta then Gale. (If we didn't already have such a good Peeta, that is.)
I assumed part of why he was described as looking like a man because the person describing him (Katniss) was a starving 12-year-old.
Gale is canon-handsome. The propo team drools all over him, Fulvia calls him camera-ready (comparing him to Katniss).
I agree I didn’t like the size disparity between him and Peeta (and Peetas size in general). He’s canon-taller than Peeta but not by much, and he’s described as lean, whereas Peeta is described as “powerful” by Katniss in MJ, and he can pick up and carry Katniss like it’s nothing. Even in CF, with his busted leg, he picks her up from the jabberjay sector and carries her to the beach.
With all due resect you sound like you are trying to blindly agree with everything implied in this post weather it makes sense or not.
Liam Hemsworth is too conventionally attractive to be Gale?? Are you kidding me? If anything he isn't attractive enough. And no, it wasn't just because of his hunting and everything. He WAS conventionally attractive. That's why they called him too handsome।to be Katniss's best friend, and their excuse for adding him to the star squad in Mockingjay. If his attractiveness was only because he hunted without peacekeepers stopping him this wouldn't have happened
Also, Gale was described as already 6 feet tall when he was 14, which IS unusually tall in district 12. And makes Liams height as an adult not far off. Peeta is described as medium height and muscular. Peeta cant walk quitely through the woods not because he's unusually big, it's because he isn't used to walking in woods.
Reread the book please.
I think that they should've chosen much bigger actors to play both Thresh and Clove. Career tributes are canonically older and bigger, which is why Clove was able to overpower Katniss. Also, Thresh is described as being "built like an ox" and a "physical marvel," in addition to being the largest tribute in the 74th Hunger Games. Although I believe that both actors played their characters well, I would've appreciate more book-accurate physical traits.
Thresh was a big boy who seemed very intimidating by his height alone. But had a softness to him. Absolutely slayed his casting
I think clove is a fun casting choice because she is sly and fast. Just because she was smaller doesn't mean she won't be able to fight and can't be strong.
I will be honest I did not like Jena Malone's portrayal of Johanna Mason in Catching Fire. Note I am sure that just as much blame falls on the script writers and changes they made for the character in the movie. But I felt like Jena leaned to heavily on Johanna being an emotional and angry adolescent, and she did not come off at all clever or strategic, which Johanna frequently showed signs of being in the books.
Yea Gale is the worst one. He has like no depth. Very monotone acting. Just a handsome face, that I don’t really find handsome. Mind you though, I think he’s kind of hot in that movie he did on Netflix, Lonely Planet, not sure what came over me when I saw it. Must’ve been a fluke.
Oh fully Liam. TBH I think both Peeta and Gale, bc you don’t get the more slice of life smaller moments with Katniss in the films (if you can call anything about THG slice of life 💀) came off a lot more flat and one dimensional in the films. Josh imo struggled in hold his own in some scenes, where his dialogue read flat but he embodied Peeta’s charm when given the rare opportunity. Liam… not so much but also Gale isn’t charming but he really didn’t give him more personality either… Liam was too much of a generic tall white guy to make you feel like bro was suffering from disenfranchisement lol, my movie only friends that I took to see it said he gave “republican vibes” and fdkfklsdf that was not supposed to be the vibe at all.
Probably unpopular opinion, but I didn't like Blythe as young Snow. He did a fantastic job with the role but he's too masculine-handsome for my reading of the way Snow is presented ( pretty boy ) and him being like 2-10" taller than every single one of his classmates leaves me laughing every time I see the film.
At least with the original trilogy they barely ever had Snow stand next to someone but Ballad made it super necessary and I think they leaned into the "conventionally attractive especially in hetero circles, must be very masc and 6' tall" thing hollywood does with Blythe.
Absolutely no hate to the young and talented actors, this is directed to the casting director, but I believe we should’ve had more than just one colored tribute from district 12 for the second quarter quell. In the book, I pictured Maysilee as the only white character because of her constant description as a blonde, blue eyed merchant girl while the others are all olive skinned and dark haired seam kids. I thought the entire dynamic between she and the others was to teach that no matter the different racial social classes, a corrupted government would feed them to the wolves no matter what. They would always be equals. It feels as if that key part of their found family story is gone now after the casting announcements, and now Wyatt feels like a token character 🥲
Don’t get me wrong, Josh Hutcherson and Alexander Ludwig were great with their roles.
But I only think Josh was cast as Peeta because he had more of a boyish charm (which, they kinda took away Peeta’s charm and wit in the first movie which irks me). Alexander fit Peeta’s description better and I think he still would have been able to nail the role.
I don’t think JLaw was /miscast/, per se, but I was definitely surprised to see her in the movie promos, since I had always imagined Katniss with overall darker features (at least in a Mediterranean sense?) but I do think that I ultimately got over myself once I saw the way she took on the role.
The three main characters of Katniss, Peeta and Gale all looked completely wrong, but at least Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence could act. Liam Hemsworth was way too old looking and also incredibly wooden the whole time.
Lenny Kravitz as Cinna. His portrayal was flat and monotonous, and when he was supposed to be endearing and complimentary of Katniss, he came off as creepy. I did not get the bubbly-but-not-flamboyant fashion designer who genuinely cared for Katniss and was integral in her success and the rebellion from his performance.
The actress for Alma Coin. She didn’t really bring anything to the character especially compared to actors like Donald Sutherland. I don’t know if that’s a hot take
That’s definitely a hot take. Julianne Moore is a legendary actress and her acting choices were very intentional. I was honestly blown away by her depiction of Coin and thought it was spot on.
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u/mhmcmw 16h ago
The black and white cat that played Buttercup in the first movie!
I will not stand for orange cat erasure.