Hunger Games Director Refused To Use ‘Digital Trickery’ To Recreate Philip Seymour Hoffman

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Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead inside his apartment back in February of this year. News of his death shocked his fans, family and his Hunger Games co-stars. The award-winning actor had just a few scenes left to film for his role as Plutarch Heavensbee in the ‘Hunger Games’ franchise.

After his death, rumors surfaced that director Francis Lawrence would digitally recreate the actor for his last two scenes in the series. Obviously, with the technology in place today, that wouldn’t have been an issue for Lawrence.

However, during a recent interview with Huffpost Live, the director explained that he refused to use CGI to recreate Hoffman.

“He had two scenes with dialogue that were left and we decided we didn’t want to try any digital trickery with him, so we rewrote his scenes and gave the dialogue to other actors.”

Why did he decide to do that? Well, because Hoffman deserved better.

“I just think to try to fake a Philip Seymour Hoffman performance would have been catastrophic and I would never want to do that.”

It’s hard to argue with his reasoning. And the films have done a tremendous job of staying true to the books, so I don’t think this change will ruin the movie for anybody.

You can catch The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 in a theater near you this Friday. Or if you are like me and purchased tickets to the advance screening, you’ll be watching it a day early on Thursday.