One of our favorite Catching Fire cast members, Bruno Gunn talked with his hometown paper, The Canton Repository, about his upcoming turn as Brutus in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Image by Julie Vennitti/CantonRep
“It should be interesting to say the least, having someone come up and say, ‘Gosh, you’re Brutus!’ when I’m pumping gas,” Gunn said, during a recent interview at Bender’s Tavern.
Clearly, Gunn is hoping The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will take him to the next level. “Faith it till you make it” is his longtime mantra.
While unable to divulge any specifics about his action-heavy scenes in Catching Fire — filmed last year in Atlanta and the Hawaiian jungle — Gunn spoke in reverent tones about his fellow cast members.
“You get to the set and look around and it’s just one great actor after another,” he said. “The first night there I was having dinner with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jennifer (Lawrence), Josh (Hutcherson), Stanley Tucci, Jeffrey Wright, Amanda Plummer. Not just great actors but good human beings.
“I’d be in makeup talking art with Woody Harrelson,” Gunn recalled. “Watching Stanley Tucci act was like a master class in acting. That goes for Jennifer and Josh, too. I’d hang back, watch and learn as much as possible.”
After receiving the news that he’d been cast as Brutus, Gunn first made an ecstatic phone call to his fiancée. But as fate would have it, he was flying to Italy that very day to visit with friends and family, and decided to wait until he arrived to tell them.
“Here I am with this life-changing news and I’m stuck on a plane for nine hours,” he said. To his amusement, the majority of his fellow passengers were watching the first “Hunger Games” as the in-flight movie.
To prepare for his Catching Fire role as Brutus, a strong and brutal returning Hunger Games victor, Gunn worked out intensively three to four hours daily with trainer Drew Logan, doing a lot of weights, a lot of cardio and 500 situps every night.” “I was in good shape when I got the role, but I wanted to bring a stronger, bigger, more physical Brutus.”
Apparently, Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins was pleased with Gunn’s casting as Brutus.
“When I met her,” he said, “she dove in and gave me a big bear hug.”