The nepo baby casting fans had in mind for the upcoming Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, wasn’t the best fit, revealed the film’s director, Francis Lawrence.
The role of the younger version of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, Plutarch Heavensbee, went to Oscar-and Emmy-nominated Breaking Bad actor Jesse Plemons, 38, despite fans rooting for Hoffman’s 23-year-old son Cooper to play the role. Lawrence, who worked with the younger Hoffman on his 2025 film, The Long Walk, explained the decision in an interview from Wednesday.
He told The Hollywood Reporter, “I love to work with people over and over, and Cooper is high on that list,” but “We needed someone who felt considerably older than Cooper is.”
Sunrise on the Reaping takes place 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games. Joseph Zayda will play Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch and Elle Fanning will play Elizabeth Banks’ Effie Trinket. Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman will be played by Kieran Culkin, while the late Donald Sutherland’s character President Coriolanus Snow will be portrayed by Ralph Fiennes.
Lawrence directed three out of the four Hunger Games sequels, as well as 2023’s prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. The franchise has so far grossed over $3.3 billion worldwide.
Plemons, who played Hoffman’s son in the 2012 film The Master, said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast last October that he initially felt uneasy about taking on Hoffman’s role. “I have such respect and admiration for him,” he said, but “I think I just decided, I want to do it. I like the part, and I like the script, and I like the director and the cast.”
Cooper is one of three children Hoffman shared with his partner Mimi O’Donnell. The Oscar-winning actor starred as Plutarch Heavensbee in three Hunger Games films before he died from accidental acute mixed drug intoxication in 2014. He hadn’t finished filming his roles in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2 when he died, according to Deadline, but his character was reworked to remain in the story.
Though he didn’t cast the younger Hoffman, Lawrence recalled their “emotional” meeting during his interview. “I will say that meeting Cooper the first time was very powerful,” the director said. “To see, and feel, the similarities they both have, it made me emotional.”
Cooper stars alongside Olivia Wilde in Gregg Araki’s erotic comedy-thriller I Want Your Sex, which was released in U.S. theaters this past weekend.
Sunrise on the Reaping is in theaters on November 20.
