"Hunger Games" Casting Mania! (part six)

Hoo boy, the fans are getting restless. We want Haymitch! Or Cinna! Or at least Greasy Sae! Instead, they’re blazing their way through all the Tributes, one district at a time. “Who cares?” roar the fans. “Half these characters don’t even make it past the Cornucopia!” (If you don’t know what the Cornucopia is, you haven’t read Hunger Games and are missing out hugely. And I’m not gonna explain everything to you. Sorry.) Since my last post, only one sort-of-major character has been cast. That’d be...

The Role: Foxface! This sly, sneaky, and extremely resourceful girl from District Five gains her nickname due to her red hair and cunning visage. Her real name is unknown and she’s never heard to speak, but she becomes a major contender in the games by playing smarter, not harder. She hides and snoops, letting all the more violent kids do each other in, stealing food and committing sabotage. Not a bad way to win! But it doesn’t work forever. I won’t give away her manner of death, but it’s both anticlimactic and oddly hilarious.

The Actress: Her name is Jacqueline “Jackie” Emerson. She has one credit on IMDB. That would be providing the voice of a donkey on 2004’s Father of the Pride, a TV cartoon about Siegfried and Roy’s tigers, which sank like a stone due to being shit. Also, y’know, that whole IRL mauling thing. Yep. That’s it. Ms. Emerson’s audition must have been interesting.

My Approval Rating: 4 out of 10. What do I have to go by? Nathing. But her face isn’t right for the part. She’s Foxface! She should be lean and mean! Emerson looks too sweet and well-fed. Yeah, she can slim down, but I just can’t mentally transplant her into the role. I know, I know, Benefit of the Bloody Doubt and all. I’ll try to be nice, but I want to see her in action before I warm to her.

Who I Would Have Picked: Dakota Blue Richards. Not only does she have a way more awesome name, but she was great in The Golden Compass, even if the movie itself was a wince-inducing pile of fail. She knows how to play scrappy, unfriendly, and resourceful. She’s got the mane of hair and the narrower, more knife-edged face. The Foxface. Hell, yeah. Give this girl a film career!





The Wall of Doomed Children 2:
Despite having to play nameless fodder, I bet all these young folks are kicking up their heels that they get to be in The Hunger Games. I know I would be! A lot of these people have done stunt work, which is pretty awesome, as it suggests some truly epic smackdowns are on the way. Specifically, the Cornucopia battle, where many of the Tributes die horrible deaths right off the bat. Wonder how they’ll pull it off in PG-13 land.

So, let’s see...Chris Mark is playing the dude from District Five, and let me just say that any kid who poses like this for photos is fucking awesome in every way. Then we have Ashton Moio and Kara Peterson as the kids from District Six, while Sam Ly and Leigha Hancock are representing District Seven. Is that pronounced “Lee-a” or “Lay-a”? And isn’t it amusing that every action movie these days has to include badass Asians in the background?

Guess we can soon look forward to the casting of Districts Eight through Ten. And THEN can we please get someone more interesting?!