Stanley Tucci cast in 'The Hunger Games'

Stanley Tucci cast in 'The Hunger Games'

by Karen Valby

In a move bound to delight even the most wary of Hunger Games fans, Lionsgate announced today that Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) will play smooth-talking interviewer Caesar Flickerman in the film adaptation. Flickerman is a pivotal supporting player throughout Suzanne Collins’ best-selling trilogy. It is he who’s charged with introducing Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen, as well as all the other tributes, to the Capitol audience. If the tributes are able to ingratiate themselves upon the audience in their brief time with Flickerman, they up their chances of survival.

Flickerman cuts a garish figure — in the 74th Hunger Games, his hair, lips, and eyelids are dyed powder blue and he wears a blue suit peppered with blinking lights — and, like most in the Capitol, has had extensive plastic surgery. The Hunger Games goes into production this month and will be in theaters March 23, 2012.