Why Hunger Games prequel is just the beginning for Aussie Knox Gibson

A role in the new Hunger Games prequel is just the beginning for Orange teenager Knox Gibson, who lost an arm in a lawnmowing accident when he was three.

When Knox Gibson was three, he lost his arm in a lawnmowing accident – a moment in time he vividly remembers, more than a decade later.

Today, he is your typical Orange 16-year-old, albeit one whose name photographers screamed while he walked the red carpet in LA last week for the Hunger Games prequel premiere – a movie he shot in Germany for five months of last year.

And next week, his local town – the teenager’s biggest supporters – will host a screening of Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to see their mate on the big screen. And, if he has his way, the acting hopeful, and one of only two Aussie actors in the cast, says this is just the beginning.

“It was amazing; the whole thing was amazing, to be honest, as you would expect,” he says.

“The sets, the production – it was massive ... and then the premieres, the red carpets and all that, I mean, I’ve never done anything like that in my life.”

Orange 16-year-old Knox Gibson off the set of the movie Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

Talking to Insider between Year 10 classes at his local high school, Gibson said having one arm had never stopped him from doing what he wanted to do. He was reversed over by a ride-on lawnmower by his grandfather when he was just a toddler. His arm was saved only by the fact the lawnmower blades were so hot, they cauterised his open wound and temporarily stopped the bleeding.

“I remember it pretty well, actually, it’s pretty vivid in my memory,” he says.

Knox Gibson lost his arm in a lawnmower accident when he was three.

Since then, he’s made it his mission to advocate for people living with a disability, both at home in Australia and across the globe.

In the anticipated new instalment of the Hunger Games phenomenon, Gibson plays a character called Bobbin from District 8.

In the book it was not written that these characters have a disability – casting people living with a disability was a creative direction decision, another huge step in the right direction, he says.

Knox Gibson at a premier of Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

“Representation, for me is definitely important. When I was younger, I definitely didn’t really see people on TV that were like me ... that’s definitely something I would have liked to see.”

The ambitious teen already has an impressive resume that includes modelling gigs, acting gigs, and sports achievements – he’s a national swimmer and is in the pool seven times a week with his eyes on the Paralympics – and even played the lead in a Netflix documentary Forgive Us Our Trespasses.

When he got the call up for Hunger Games, his mum came with him for the five-month shoot and he did schoolwork remotely, something he was well versed in, thanks to Covid.

“So we’d film and then basically be tourists and walk around at the same time.”

It’s definitely surreal, he says of the experience.

“I never imagined, even a few years ago, that this is what I’d be doing in Year 10. I’m pinching myself.”