Peter Dinklage, already known for playing one infamous boozehound as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, has signed to play another who enjoys a drink or twelve. Deadline reports Dinklage has joined The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, as the notorious creator of the games who did so while drunk.
Dinklage will reportedly play Casca Highbottom, dean of the Academy and a former friend of Crassus Snow, father to future ruler of Panem, Coriolanus Snow. As a young student, Highbottom and Crassus Snow were assigned a ghoulish homework assignment to devise a brutal punishment that the Districts would never forget how they betrayed the Capitol. In a drunken stupor, Highbottom conjured up what would eventually become the Hunger Games. Snow, a sniveling weasel, would turn the project in and take credit through trickery. Highbottom would hold a grudge against the Snow family, which would eventually include young Coriolanus.
The story takes place some 70 years before the Hunger Games featuring Katniss Everdeen.
For the record, this is not the best origin for the Hunger Games? It’s pretty stupid and frivolous, although I do not think it completely undercuts its place as the ultimate weapon of a fascist government.
Dinklage joins a cast that includes Tom Blyth as young Coriolanus Snow, Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, Jason Schwartzman as Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman, Hunter Schafer as Tigris Snow, and Josh Andrés Rivera as Sejanus Plinth.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes opens November 17th 2023.
