The Blues

Peeta & Gale

On April 6, 2011, in Books, Movies, News, by Rosie

Being a great actor might be a bit like being a great writer — the elite exponents of these ‘crafts’ (for want of a better, less pompous word) make you want to believe. They create something and draw you in, until you become a willing participant in their fictional game.

I’m no expert, but I do know what I like.

In her trilogy, The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins made me visualize — and believe within fictional reason — that a post-apocalyptic world held annual games requiring youngsters to fight to the death. Among other things. She created a universe. She gave it colour, an ounce of humanity and wove wonderful characters throughout the pages.

When a writer creates a specific world of his/her own, it’s simply that. Something that has evolved in their imagination and they’ve seen it in their mind’s eye. Or their dreams. Or perhaps their drunken stupor (not that Collins drinks — sorry Suzanne — but some writers do, apparently).

When a book is made into a movie, most fans of the story have a preconceived idea of how the fictional universe and the characters will look. It’s the way the author has described them, combined with the reader’s own interpretation via the written word.

A couple of weeks ago, Jennifer Lawrence was cast as Katniss, the arrow-zinging, wonderwall of Collins’s trilogy. Peeta and Gale have now been selected and the internet is scorching with conjecture, grave disappointment and opinions of all persuasions regarding Josh and Liam.

In my situation, ignorance is bliss. I have no idea of the acting prowess of Joshbo and Lee, but I hold onto the positive notion that Collins was part of the process. She’s seen Josh demonstrate the complexities of the Peeta Malark character, has witnessed Liam’s nonverbal strengths as the extremely handsome Gale. What more can we hope for? The author herself, the creator of the world into which we’ve read, has given her seal of approval for these young blokes to assume the mantles of her characterizations.

Regardless of negativity, hair colour, sexy favourites that may have been overlooked, our preconceived ideas, I cannot wait to see how these three actors breathe life into Katniss, Peeta and Gale. Only then might I pass judgment … once I’ve actually seen it.

The aspect I find the most disconcerting with the pending arrival of The Hunger Games to the big screen is the comparison between it and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight extravaganza. There is NO comparison. Without doing a disservice to Ms Meyer, her sparkling vampires and heroines with erotically tasty blood corpusles pulsing through lithe bod-lets, The Hunger Games universe is on an entirely different level.

Both thematically and with regard to originality.

We shall have to wait until Reaping Time for movie and see what happens. At least Chicken will rest happily in her coop, knowing she won’t have to watch older actors ‘who are in EVERYTHING’ playing her favourite young characters.

The final proof will be in the Hunger Games pudding, and considering all of the Tributes are starving to death, this will be a very fruitful pudding indeed.

Thanks to Rebekah for her manips, we have some early ideas of what Josh and Liam might look like as they assume the Peeta and Gale fascades: