I'm not going to lie and say that I haven't judged an actor's ability to take on a role based on looks. I think it's part of our nature as human beings to react to whatever we absorb first--namely, we see and process how someone looks before anything else. If something displeases us visually, we tend to react initially to that emotion. It's only after a period of time and reflection that we are able to reevaluate all aspects past the outer shell.
Naturally, when it comes to a movie adaptation of something we love--like book series, for instance--we tend to get a little defensive as to what should be translated faithfully and who should take on the characters. It happened with Harry Potter, it happened with Twilight; there are many things that we tend to nit-pick that end up either worse than we had anticipated (see Eragon), or much, much higher than our expectations could have forseen (see Lord of the Rings).
The three leads in The Hunger Games were recently announced, and the same kind of thing has happened with it as the film's predecessors. Jennifer Lawrence, apparently, is too pretty for the part of Katniss, while Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth don't seem to meet the requirements of the roles of Peeta and Gale, respectively, because they aren't good looking enough, etc.
In the case of the HG film, I was more concerned with having actors that could act (ESPECIALLY after seeing the mess that was Red Riding Hood*) as opposed to those who looked good but could not give the performance their enormous paychecks paid them for. There is nothing worse than going to see a movie adaptation and finding shambles of character that you don't even recognize, especially with an adaptation that is as culturally important as HG is at this time. So, what I propose is that we allow ourselves a little faith in those that have been cast and wait to see what they have to present to us come next year.
Jennifer Lawrence was in Winter's Bone, a film that received hardcore critical acclaim. I haven't seen anything that Liam Hemsworth has been in, but I've heard good things about The Last Song**. Josh Hutcherson, however, is the one I'm really excited about seeing. I know a lot of people were upset that he was cast, but I'd like to point out how bad it would be to have a soul-less Peeta. (Personally, I really want a Peeta who could capture both the real Peeta and the televised one interchangeably.) Josh Hutcherson can act--I would recommend seeing The Kids Are All Right and Bridge to Terabithia, because he is excellent in both. He may not be blonde-ish, but he did cause a reaction in the form of a high-five from both Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins at his audition. As a fan of the high-five myself, I think that's a good sign.
I guess my concern is that we won't know whether any of these choices will be worth our time until we see the movie in its completed form. There's always going to be controversy and defense from the fans--and believe me, I'm totally there with everyone else--but I feel we should have a little faith. Who knows? The movie could be awesome. I don't think the filmmakers would want to ruin Hunger Games for us. After all, they're fans too.
*Because--and let's just be honest here--while those beautiful boys were...beautiful...they were also wooden actors that did not make seeing that movie worth my time or money.
**Then again, I've also heard bad things....but it is a Nicolas Sparks' adaptation, so there's always going to be good and bad feedback.
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