Why Tom Blyth's Hunger Games Role Made His Mother Furious
Contains spoilers for "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes"
Being the parent of a major movie star has to be pretty tough, especially if you see them doing unsavory things on screen that you find upsetting. Maybe your kid has a super-intimate scene with a co-star that you really didn't need to see, or perhaps they're playing a truly unsavory character that makes you wonder how your sweet baby could do such a thing. Apparently, Tom Blyth's mom wasn't happy about one particular scene in his new film "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" — but that was mostly because his character Coriolanus Snow did something horrible to her celebrity crush.
During the London premiere of the critically acclaimed prequel, Blyth said that after a scene where Coriolanus poisons and kills Peter Dinklage's character Casca Highbottom, his mother was quite upset. "I watched the movie with my mom at the London premiere and she has a bit of a crush on Peter," Blyth revealed to Entertainment Weekly. "And she turns to me and sits forward in her chair and mouths to me, 'How dare you?' She was truly livid. She loves Peter Dinklage. Sorry, mom." Again, watching your child on-screen could potentially be tricky, but getting mad that they killed off your secret crush definitely feels like a new problem for parents of celebrities.
Tom Blyth also discussed his off-screen dynamic with Peter Dinklage
If this helps Tom Blyth's mom deal with the fact that her child murdered Peter Dinklage on-screen, the young actor also told Entertainment Weekly that Dinklage was an incredibly important mentor to him off-screen. Blyth, for his part, is still relatively unknown save for some episodes of HBO's period piece "The Gilded Age," and "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" is his first huge project. Meanwhile, Dinklage, who won a record-setting four Emmy Awards for his role as Tyrion Lannister in "Game of Thrones," is no stranger to enormous franchises set in strange, dangerous worlds.
"He's so about the work," Blyth told EW about Dinklage. "He makes such strong choices. Every take is different. He and I became quite close over the course of the shoot."
Beyond that, Blyth revealed that Dinklage, an extraordinarily experienced actor on both stage and screen, shared some advice about appearing in such a monumental project: "The advice he gave was, 'This is going to be a big film. It's going to have its own machinery that carries it forward. There's going to be a lot of noise. But just focus on the work [and] enjoy it.' I'm very grateful to him for taking me under his wing."
Wait, why does Coriolanus Snow kill Casca Highbottom in the first place?
One of the most fascinating things about "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" is the fact that its apparent protagonist, Coriolanus, isn't a good guy — and his character only devolves as his story continues. Tom Blyth's character begins the story as a downtrodden young man from a historically wealthy family who's desperate to cover up the fact that the Snows are now impoverished, and as a result, he works as a mentor during the 10th Hunger Games, a sick tradition conceived by Casca Highbottom (also the dean of the Capitol's prestigious Academy).
Throughout the story, it's quite clear that Casca absolutely despises the much younger Coriolanus, but the reason why isn't revealed until the end of the film. As it turns out, Coriolanus' father Crassus Snow manipulated an intoxicated Casca years earlier when the latter floated the extreme idea of the Hunger Games, a ritual meant to punish the districts of Panem for their rebellion by forcing their children to fight to the death. Casca never meant for it to come to fruition, but Crassus submitted it to the Academy simply to get high marks ... and the Hunger Games were born. After this revelation, Coriolanus poisons Casca, kicking off a career-long habit of poisoning his enemies.
"The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" is in theaters now.