Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the greats in film, and "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay" director Francis Lawrence has too much respect for the late actor to utilize CGI to finish his remaining scenes in the film.
Hoffman, who plays Plutarch Heavensbee in the final two installments of "The Hunger Games" franchise, died in February from drug intoxication. By then, he still hasn't finished filming his scenes and Lawrence told Variety that the creative team did not use "digital trickery" to replace the actor.
Speaking to Huffpost Live, Lawrence said, "He had two scenes with dialogue that were left and we decided we didn't want to try any kind of digital trickery with him, so we rewrote his scenes and gave his dialogue to other actors. So there was one scene from 'Part 1′ and one scene from 'Part 2,' so we shot both movies back to back."
He also pointed out that it would have been disastrous to use technology to recreate such a fine actor as Hoffman, adding, "He was one of the greatest actors, I think, of all time and I just think to try to fake a Philip Seymour Hoffman performance would have been catastrophic and I would never want to do that. I just think this was the best way to be able to get around such a horrible thing."
The director also recalled the type of person Hoffman was to work with, singing praises for the actor as he shared, "He was constantly sort of grinding away at a scene and was able to dig down and down and down, deeper and really find the dynamics of the relationships that he's in. And then once you've done that process then you don't really need many takes at all with him."
Screen Rant noted that "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay" Parts 1 and 2 will be noted as Hoffman's last films. Despite being unable to complete his scenes due to his untimely death, the website notes that viewers and fans of both the actor and the franchise can rest assured that digital recreation won't be a distraction in the film nor in the actor's memory.
The website also noted that the director has seemingly stayed true to the original content as closely as possible, despite the circumstances.
"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1" opens in theaters on November 21. Part 2 will follow next year, on November 20, 2015.