The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has officially cast Game of Thrones actor and four-time Emmy Award winner Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom, the dean of the Academy.
President of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group Nathan Kahane announced the casting and stated that Dinklage would be joining Tom Blyth’s young Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler’s tribute Lucy Gray Baird.
“Dean Highbottom is one of the most powerful people in Snow’s life,” director Francis Lawrence said. “As the austere and vindictive face of the games, he sets the rules that will determine every aspect of Coriolanus’s fate. I’m thrilled that Peter will be bringing him to life.”
Casca helped launch the Hunger Games and would later become the public face of the competition. He was first introduced in Suzanne Collins’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a book that acts as a prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy.
Dinklage was nominated for four further Emmy Awards and received four for his role of Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones. He most recently appeared in Joe Wright’s Cyrano and American Dreamer by Paul Dektor.
With Kevin Bacon and Jacob Tremblay in The Toxic Avenger, Josh Brolin and Brendan Fraser in Brothers, and Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei in She Came to Me, he will be seen in these films.
Additionally, Dinklage recently outlined the reasons for his strong opposition to the planned remake of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. On November 17, 2023, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will be shown in theatres. For additional information, see how the prequel to The Hunger Games will be different from the first two films.