Jennifer Lawrence loses herself in a book while taking a break from shooting a scene in the Training Center.
Suzanne Collins had been in on the audition, and she was one of the first people to set Lawrence’s mind at ease about
the role. She drove it home to Lawrence that it didn’t matter if people said she was too old or too blonde to play
Katniss. “I talked to Suzanne after I got the part, when I was still in England, and it was incredible — I mean, I’m
her biggest fan. She said, ‘I know you can do it,’ and all of these other nice things that just gave me the boost that
I needed. Hearing them from the woman who created Katniss — I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders,
” Lawrence recalls.
“And then we moved on to Peeta and Gale,” says Robin Bissell, “and it was almost exactly the same thing. Josh came in
and he sat down and read the cave scene, where he’s hurt and Katniss is nursing him back to life, and immediately he
was Peeta. I mean, it was that clear.”
Jacobson says, “When Josh Hutcherson came in to audition, I had actually just met with him earlier in the week, and he
was so comfortable in his own skin, so charming and so at ease and so likeable. I felt that he really captured that
‘Peeta-ocity’ of somebody who seemed genuinely sweet, genuinely likeable, but also that he could be a little smooth
when he needed to be. You could see how he could cover the politician side of the character that Katniss is both
attracted to and suspicious of.”
Suzanne Collins put it this way to Entertainment Weekly: “If Josh had been bright purple and had had six foot wings and
gave that audition, I’d have been like, ‘Cast him! We can work around the wings!’ He was that good.”
Josh Hutcherson had been working as an actor for almost a decade already. He had appeared in classic children’s movies
like The Polar Express and Bridge to Terabithia; as he grew, so did the depth of his roles. When Gary Ross and the
producers were considering him, Hutcherson had recently played a key part in the acclaimed movie The Kids Are All Right,
with Julianne Moore and Annette Bening. Starring in The Hunger Games, though, would change the course of his career.
Josh Hutcherson as Laser in The Kids Are All Right (2010).
Hutcherson says, “I fell in love with Peeta right away. His self-deprecating humor, his outlook on life, and how he
doesn’t want things to change him — those things are really a part of who I am as a person. I’ve been in this
business since I was nine years old and that can change you. Staying true to who I am, and what my value system is, has
been important to me since I was really young.”
There was an immediate rapport between Lawrence and Hutcherson, according to many people involved in the casting. Jon
Kilik says, “Jennifer and Josh have gotten along great from the beginning, right when they met in rehearsals and even
in the casting process. There was a real connection there. They’re both from Kentucky, very close to where District
Twelve is supposed to be. So there was this common bond, and it just grew from there.”
The final part of the pivotal trio was put in place with the casting of Australian actor Liam Hemsworth as Gale.
Hemsworth had recently drawn attention as the love interest of Miley Cyrus in The Last Song. He wouldn’t have a great
deal of screen time in The Hunger Games, but Ross and the producers were already looking ahead to future movies, where
Gale would step into the spotlight.
Katniss and Gale relax in the woods outside District 12.
Jacobson puts it this way: “Liam is this big, hunky guy. He has a clear physical advantage over Peeta, which we found
interesting — that they would be physically contrasting types. And when we put the actors together in the auditions,
you could see how, when Katniss asks Gale to take care of her family, she would trust that he’d do it. Liam is able to
communicate very effectively with his eyes and with the small gestures. But you also believe that he has that
revolutionary spirit, that he has that fiery quality inside of him.”