After months of endless speculation, The Hunger Games fans can rejoice in the announcement of the actor set to portray the role of Finnick Odair in the upcoming Catching Fire.
Sam Claflin, who most recently starred alongside Kristen Stewart in Snow White and the Huntsman, which was at the center of the actress’ cheating scandal this summer, will play the desirable role in the second installment of The Hunger Games franchise.
A dozen names of actors were tossed around in the recent months of the casting, amongst those were Robert Pattinson, Taylor Kitsch, Armie Hammer and Garrett Hedlund.
Now that Claflin has been cast in a fame-launching role, not much is known about the 26-year-old British actor.
But here are five tidbits, which you don’t know about Catching Fire’s newest star:
1. He and Kristen Stewart have common ground.
Not in the famous Hollywood cheating scandal department, but more so in the musical sense. Claflin, a fan such a fan of singer Marcus Foster – he even sang at his birthday party – found out before shooting the Huntsman that Stewart knew Foster well since starring in his music video I Was Broken in 2011. “It was an immediate ice-breaker as we had something in common,” Claflin said.
2. Claflin auditioned to portray the prince in both Snow White films.
The actor may have starred as the prince in the Huntsman with Charlie Thereon and Stewart, but he has confessed he also tried out for the role as the prince in the more family-friendly version Mirror, Mirror starring Julia Roberts and Lily Collins. The role essentially went to Armie Hammer.
3. Claflin doesn’t come from a showbiz family.
His birthplace is Ipswich, Suffolk, where his mother is a classroom assistant at the high school he attended, his father is an accountant. “My parents don’t have any show business links,” Claflin said in an interview. “They are so far from it. It is nice to be able to share it with them and hold hands and scream together.”
4. His other career could have been: Soccer star.
The 26-year-old says he played soccer “24/7” when he was younger, if only he hadn’t broken his ankle as a teenager, his life in the U.K. could have went into a more the direction of becoming a professional athlete. When he was playing for the School of Excellence for Norwich City FC, he suffered the injury that ended his career as a soccer player at the age of 16-years-old.
5. He will also star in The Quiet Ones.
The actor will star opposite Jared Harris in the supernatural thriller, based on true events, which is centered on a University physics professor whom assembles a team to help create a poltergeist with negative human energy.
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