Josh Hutcherson on five years with The Hunger Games and if Peeta should win Katniss’ heart

LIAM Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson have long fought for Jennifer Lawrence’s heart in The Hunger Games series. Hutcherson reveals why he should win.

AFTER four films that spanned over five years, Kentucky-born actor Josh Hutcherson’s time in The Hunger Games arena is coming to a close.

Hutcherson, who began his professional career at the age of nine in a pilot episode of TV drama House Blend, looks back on how the epic film saga has changed his life.

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Josh, have you come to terms with the fact this is the end of The Hunger Games?

Yeah, it’s been a long time coming. There’s definitely a sense of accomplishment and excitement to move on to the next thing, but it’s also a little bit weird knowing you’re not going to be making any more of these movies.

It sounds a bit cheesy, but do you think yourself, Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth have grown up through these movies?

Absolutely. It’s been like a college experience — I started when I was 18 and I’m 23 now. You do a lot of growing in those years. And we’ve experienced a lot, the three of us together.

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Final Hunger Games film ... Hutcherson as the crazier, psycho killer model Peeta in Mockingjay — Part 2. Picture: Roadshow Films

In the first film, Peeta was the golden boy and our moral compass. When it came to the two Mockingjay instalments, did you enjoy ...

Going crazy? Being a psycho killer? Definitely. That’s one of the parts I was most looking forward to playing. To take a character everybody thinks they can trust and flip it on its head was really fun. I enjoyed going to that dark, crazy place. I’d never played anything like that before — it was definitely a new experience being strapped down to a bed and having to freak out and go nuts.

The late Philip Seymour Hoffman was an actor who went to those dark, crazy places. Was he on set when you were filming those scenes?

He wasn’t. However, he’s been a huge inspiration. Every actor would dream to be one hundredth of the actor he was. He lost himself in every role. So definitely, that style of acting was something I was trying to emulate. He was someone we all looked up to very much.

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Jennifer says she kept very busy making movies over the past five years because she didn’t want The Hunger Games to overwhelm her other work. Did you have that fear as well?

A little bit, yeah. Any actor who signs onto a big franchise that has a big book following ... we’ve seen in the past with these things, people get stuck in those characters. The good thing was all of us — me, Jen and Liam — had careers before; obviously this is the biggest thing by far and the thing we’re most known for, but the producers did a good job of populating the cast with really talented, known actors, so I think people do see it as actors in roles and not necessarily the roles completely defining the actors.

Bonded over five years ... Hemsworth, Lawrence and Hutcherson on the red carpet at the Spanish premiere in Madrid on November 10. Picture: Carlos Alvarez / Getty Image

You hung out and made a short film with Ron Howard recently. Is that just your highfalutin’ world now?

It’s me and Ron hanging out, yeah (laughs). That was a really fun project. Ron Howard is a person I’ve looked up to my whole life, since I first started acting. Him being a child actor and making his way out of that to become one of the most prolific, known directors of our time — it’s a career I’ve wanted to emulate because I want to be a director as well. It’s cool I got to work with him.

Peeta and his rival for Katniss’ heart, Gale, finally have a man-to-man chat in Mockingjay — Part 2. Is that something you and Liam had been joking about for a long time?

Yeah, Mockingjay is like the first time me and Liam actually have a scene. It was nice to finally work together! It was weird ’cos we’ve been such close friends throughout the shoot, but never actually worked together — it was either Liam and Jen or me and Jen. So finally we got to combine all three forces.

Obviously those who have read the books know which guy Katniss ends up with. But what’s your pitch as to why she should choose Peeta over Gale?

It’s tough. They don’t exactly live in the most easy of times. Both of the characters have things that Katniss finds interesting ... The defining moment really is what happens with Gale and his darkness that comes out towards the end. Even though Peeta has been tortured and he’s kinda gone crazy, he comes back around and he still has that golden, moral compass thing. I think that’s why Katniss should go in that direction.

... and with a frozen Kristen Stewart in Zathura a year later. Picture: Supplied

Hutcherson through the years Pt 1: Aged 11 in Little Manhattan ... Picture: Supplied

There’s an epic fight sequence in the sewers of The Capitol in Mockingjay — Part 2. Did that entail weeks on end of being wet and exhausted?

Pretty much. They took care of us — we had a little warming tent of heaters and stuff — but after about six days of being in soaking wet clothes all day shooting action sequences, it gets to you.

You had the extra challenge of doing it all with your hands tied ...

Just the generic living with your hands tied is a little harder than having your hands free — you don’t have the same mobility that you normally have. But I adapted and now I know that if I’m in a situation where my hands are tied together, I have some experience.

Is it strange that you’ve basically got a moving photo album of your childhood?

Yeah my parents always joke like, ‘We don’t have a lot of home movies of you growing up, but we’ve got a lot of studio-produced movies of you growing up’. It is weird. Sometimes one of my old movies — like Little Manhattan I did when I was 11-years-old — will be on TV as I’m flipping through channels and I’m like, ‘Woah!’ It seems surreal.

Was there ever a dream that might have turned your head from acting?

There was a moment where I kind of quit acting to play soccer ... but that didn’t last very long. Because 1) I had to go to real school and that wasn’t exactly my favourite thing. And 2) I wasn’t quite good enough to become a professional soccer player.

... and with Brendan Fraser in 2008’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Picture: Supplied

Hutcherson through the years Pt 2: With Annasophia Robb in 2007’s Bridge to Terabithia. Picture: Supplied

Could it be your entire acting career was just your way of getting out of school?

You know, funnily enough, before I started acting I was always playing sick to get out of school. They’d call my mum from elementary school: ‘Hey Michelle, Josh is sick. We need you to come get him.’ She’d be like: ‘No he’s not. He’s not sick. Do not listen to him.’ ‘No really, you should see him.’ It worked every time — she had to come get me.

So there’s probably nothing you could do on screen that your mum hasn’t seen before.

Well, actually, she did tell me when she saw Mockingjay that she was shocked to see her son in that kind of state. ’Cos I’ve been crazy as a child growing up, but nothing quite like that.

What will you miss about Peeta?

Peeta always had this idea about not wanting to be a piece in the game. That definitely resonates within me — I don’t like to subscribe to convention. In that sense, Peeta’s a bit of a rebel and I connected with that about him.

New direction ... Hutcherson hopes to emulate Ron Howard’s path into directing. Picture: AP / Abraham Caro Marin

What is your life, post-Hunger Games?

I just want to keep making movies. I’m reading lots of scripts and I find I’m drawn to unique characters and trying to find filmmakers who are bold and do their own thing. Whether it’s dark thrillers or comedies, it really depends on the filmmaker and the character. But also I’ve been doing a lot of work lately producing things — I have a production company I’m trying to grow, to get behind the camera more and eventually direct.

Does directing come with an age restriction — you can’t do it until you’re 30 or somesuch?

Not really. Everybody’s like, ‘Just do it! Just go direct something’. But I’m really precious with it, maybe to a fault, because when I do it I want to really do it right. I don’t want to push myself into doing it for other reasons before I’m ready.

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Originally published as Josh Hutcherson on five years with The Hunger Games and if Peeta should win Katniss’ heart