How ‘Hunger Games’ wrapped without Hoffman

The tragic death of Philip Seymour Hoffman in February stunned and saddened the world. Among the legions who mourned him: his co-stars and collaborators on The Hunger Games films. Because people trickled back to the set in waves after a break from shooting, director Francis Lawrence says in Empire magazine, there ended up being a series of mourning periods on set, running nearly a month long. Unfortunately, the filmmakers also had to consider how they would complete Hoffman’s work on the two parts of Mockingjay.

You could hear a pin drop that first day back… We all gathered and said something about him and for him. It was tough…

Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence

Hoffman, who played rebel Plutarch Heavensbee in the series, had about 8 to 10 days left to shoot, though many of them didn’t have much dialogue. To Lawrence, the solution was to entirely rewrite scenes, giving the dialogue to other actors instead of creating a digital likeness of Hoffman. Back in May, Lawrence said that they would insert real footage of Hoffman into those ensemble scenes, and would not be using any digital or robotic renderings of his likeness (reports from FX people working on the film had suggested otherwise).

The rest, we just didn’t have him appear in those scenes. There’s no digital manipulation or CG fabrication of any kind.

Francis Lawrence

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