“Game of Thrones” star Gwendoline Christie will replace Lily Rabe in “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2,” Lionsgate said Friday.
Rabe had to pull out of the role of Commander Lime, one of District 13’s leaders and a previous winner of the gladiatorial games that give the franchise its name, because of a scheduling conflict. She had a previous commitment to star in “Much Ado About Nothing” as part of New York City’s annual Shakespeare in the Park series.
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Rabe will play the role in next year’s “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.” This is not the first time a young adult franchise has been forced to switch actors in midstream — Bryce Dallas Howard was swapped in for Rachelle Lefevre as the villainous vampire Victoria midway through the “Twilight” series.
Christie is best known for playing the warrior Brienne Tarth in the hit HBO series. She also appears in Terry Gilliam‘s “The Zero Theorem.”
In “The Hunger Games” she joins a cast that includes Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
For the record: The original version of this post incorrectly referred to the film’s title as “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Part 2.”
