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Peeta Mellark

Of the five actors I’ll cover here in the column, I want to say Josh Hutcherson is probably my favorite. I first got acquainted with him in The Kids Are All Right, and in the movie Josh plays a quiet teen who seemed to be contending with a number of internal battles. His character was probably the least complex of the bunch, but mostly because he was on screen the least.

To be honest, I struggled with a pick for Peeta. I think a lot of it has to do with young male Hollywood, which to me is slim pickin's. You’ve got your Twilight boys, Zefron, maybe Logan Lerman if The Lightning Thief means anything to you, and that’s basically it.

Josh Hutcherson, though, makes a lot of sense to me, and is probably the only one here I’ll back 100%. He’s got an innocence about him that’ll play off Katniss’ tougher personality, and I like that he isn’t already too much of a name that’ll make his involvement a distraction. Yet that’ll happen if and when Catching Fire gets released. I imagine Josh Hutcherson to be the next Taylor Lautner.

Effie Trinket

Effie Trinket is a tightly wound ball of stress, and from the moment I started getting a feel for her character, I remember thinking how wonderful an Effie Trinket Parker Posey would make. Parker plays bitchy oh so well, and probably the best example of it would be her performance in Best in Show, which did many things for me including immortalizing bears in bee outfits. The role will be played by Elizabeth Banks, so my dreams didn't quite come true here.

Haymitch Abernathy

Woody Harrelson landed the role of Haymitch Abernathy, mentor to Katniss and Peeta in the games. In the book, he’s a huge drunk, and would need to be played by somebody who can act like they’ve been sipping on the juice from morning ‘til night. The books have yet to share Haymitch’s reasons for doing so, but Katniss surmises that it must be all the Hunger Games mentoring that does Haymitch in.

I would have expected the role to go to someone a little older looking than Woody. I say older “looking” because my choice would have been Philip Seymour Hoffman, and he’s 43 – six years younger than Woody.

Caesar Flickerman

Finally, one last Hunger Games role that recently got filled is Stanley Tucci as the games’ schmoozy announcer, Caesar Flickerman. In the books, he’s a real talker, a persuasive one, and keeps things fresh by changing the color of his hair for every games. The role, of course, calls for somebody a bit eccentric, and Stanley Tucci will probably fit the bill quite nicely. I think of his recent work, Stanley may pull from Dill Penderghast in Easy A. Along with Patricia Clarkson, he and Patricia played one of the more ridiculous husband-wife duos I’d seen in awhile.

I think had I been casting the movie, I would have went after John Malkovich. He’s one of Hollywood’s best screwballs – have you seen Red? The Great Buck Howard? Burn After Reading? – and his ability to go from zero to zane is a bit tough to beat.

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