By: debbie lynn elias
Anyone familiar with THE HUNGER GAMES, or as the soon to initiated will see, for those actors playing “The Tributes” who actively participate in the games themselves, athletic prowess and stamina is essential to each performance. While some of the actors, like Josh Hutcherson and Alexander Ludwig, have previously appeared in physically demanding roles, as I learned from the actors themselves, no one has done anything quite as demanding and specialized as the physicality required for THE HUNGER GAMES.
According to Hutcherson, who has consistently wowed his with his athleticism in Journey to the Center of the Earth and its recent sequel Journey 2, “Physically, for the stunt work, it was pretty similar to what I had done before. What was different was that I had to put on weight for the role. Ifd never really done that for a movie. I put on about 15 pounds of muscle, so that was a lot of eating chicken, and a very high protein, low carb diet. I also did a lot of heavy lifting and training with an ex-Navy SEAL guy that wanted to kill me every time I got with him, in a good way. That really helped out a lot. It was cool to go through that sort of physical transformation.”
Alexander Ludwig who you may remember from Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain, not only embraces the dark side of Cato, his character in THE HUNGER GAMES, but welcomes the physical rigors of the role. “When I got offered the role of Cato, I jumped on the opportunity just because I’ve never really had a chance to play a bad guy, and that’s something I’ve always really, really wanted to do. I wanted to experience that really dark side of a person, and Cato is a really, really twisted individual. We worked unbelievably hard. Physically, I wanted Cato to have as big of a physical presence as he did a mental one, in the movie. There was lots of fight training that we had to go through. I worked with an ex-Navy SEAL to bulk up. I did tons of hand-to-hand combat.”
Making the training process more authentic for co-star Isabelle Fuhrman who plays Clove, is that she and Ludwig “did a lot of work together, as far as training goes. He used a sword and I used a knife, so when we were doing the training, it was kind of the same except for the different sizes.” Never shy, Fuhrman is quick to talk about her knife throwing skills. “I’m actually really good at it, which I didnft expect at all. It was interesting because there are a lot more physics involved than I expected, originally. I don’t have a good arm, so I had to start with throwing a tennis ball, and then gradually move up to throwing an actual weighted knife at a target board. I felt like I did good. I know how to still do it.”
Quick to compliment each other on their skills, Ludwig enthusiastically remarked that “Isabelle actually did an exceptional job. She worked very, very hard” while Luhrman returned the praise, commenting, “Alex did an amazing job with those swords. It was crazy!”
Perhaps one of the most strenuous roles is that of Katniss Everdeen which required intense training by Jennifer Lawrence. “Running, free running – which is for agility – archery, climbing, combat and yoga.” And of course tree climbing, which Lawrence admits she is quite skilled at, “If I have a harness.”
Joining Lawrence in the trees is plucky Amandla Stenberg who, while taking the athletics and potential for injury quite seriously, also managed to inject some humor into the experience. “I spent some time in both real trees and the trees on the sound stage. I had a custom made harness, so I wouldn’t fall over, and it was actually really fun. There was one time that Jen [Lawrence] and I were in the tree doing a scene, and it was difficult to stay up because you gradually slide down. I found a little space in the tree where I could sit, so that I wouldn’t fall down. It was a little hole in the tree. I was sitting there and they were about to call, ’Action!,’ and I started sliding down. I yelled out really loudly, so everyone could hear, ’Wait, I can’t find my butt hole!’ Jen proceeded to make fun of me for that for the rest of the week.”
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