Today: Josh Hutcherson On “Journey 2”, “The Hunger Games” And More

Following Today’s article which featured “The Hunger Games” in their Scenestealer section, today’s edition of Today has an exclusive interview with Josh Hutcherson, who spoke about his upcoming works, “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” which opens today and also the highly anticipated “The Hunger Games” which will be released in Singapore on 22 March 2012.

Josh Hutcherson for Today

Here’s a picture of the article in Today provided by one of our readers, Rachel.

Josh Hutcherson in an esclusive interview with Today for 19 January 2012 edition

FOR those who have no idea who Josh Hutcherson is, don’t worry, you soon will. Not only did the talented 19-year-old make a huge splash last year with his performance in the award-season darling The Kids Are All Right alongside heavyweights Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, he is also the returning star of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.

The highly anticipated 3D action-adventure follow-up to the 2008 hit, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, sees our young hero return as intrepid teenage explorer who goes in search of The Mysterious Island with his step-father Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in hopes of finding his grandfather Michael Caine. And of course, Vanessa Hudgens appears along the way to provide the requisite eye candy and love interest.

With Hutcherson embodying the pivotal role of Peeta Mellark in the highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ dystopian best-seller the Hunger Games, as well as landing a role in the remake of cult favourite Red Dawn, perhaps not every child TV actor need be destined to pose for a police mug shot, after all.

Just like Jodie Foster and Leonardo Dicaprio, Hutcherson’s star looks to be shining bright.

What does landing one of the biggest roles for a young actor (on Hunger Games) mean to you?
It means the world to me! I wanted this role so badly. I think I hadn’t read a script or book that I connected more with that I did with Peeta. I had never read a character that was more like who I am as a person and had kind of my core values and what I believe in. It was crazy! So for me, it was it was a do or die situation, almost. I never felt that I was more right for a role in my life. It was kind of like if I didn’t get it, I didn’t know how I would react … so it’s just very good that I did get it.

Would you say that Peeta is your most demanding role to date?
I don’t know because like I was saying before, I never connected so much with a character before so it felt like the character was already in me. I’ve had other roles before that is very different from what I’m like as a person.

Journey 2 and Hunger Games must have been equally physically taxing.
Actually, Journey 2 had a lot more stunt work than Hunger Games. But yeah, I think Journey kind of prepared me a bit for Hunger Games because it was like running through the jungle, and trying to survive and that’s kind of what Hunger Games was. They are kind of similar in a weird way.

Head over to Today online to read about Josh Hutcherson on “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” and more. Many thanks to Rachael for the picture!

‘The Hunger Games’ will be released in Singapore on 22 March 2012.

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