Josh Hutcherson opens up about Hollywood ‘rejection’ after Hunger Games: ‘No one’ was ‘calling’

Josh Hutcherson has said early success shielded him from real setbacks, and that he didn’t feel the sting of failure or disappointment until adulthood.

The former child star was just nine when he landed his on-screen debut in the 2002 TV movie House Blend. From there, his success snowballed with roles in Bridge to Terabithia, Because of Winn-Dixie and Little Manhattan. By 18, he was cast opposite Jennifer Lawrence in the Hunger Games trilogy, an adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ best-selling dystopian series.

While the role of Peeta Mellark was expected to set him up for Hollywood greatness, Hutcherson, now 33, said it instead led to a string of failed auditions.

“I didn’t learn rejection ever,” the Five Nights at Freddy actor admitted on Tuesday’s episode of Tyler Jesse Ferguson’s Dinners On Me podcast. “I knew only success from the age nine to, like, 24, then kind of post-Hunger Games world. Because Hunger Games set things up.

“The industry is so goddamn tricky,” Hutcherson added, “because they set you up in this way where they’re like, ‘You’ve arrived. You now are working with Jennifer Lawrence and Philip Seymour Hoffman, and you’re in this movie that makes billions of dollars, you’re the second lead of the film.’”

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He revealed, however, that as “quickly as they’re excited to get you into the spotlight,” the opportunities dried up, leading to his first pangs of “disappointment, failure [and] rejection.”

“It was just like a string of no one calling, not getting any offers, auditioning but not getting cast,” Hutcherson recalled. “It’s this whole thing of, ‘Oh wow, I have my career that I’ve had since I was 9 years old. It’s always worked. I always got cast.’ Of course, there are things that you don’t get cast in, but I had only known that the chances are, if I was auditioning, was going to book it. That is just not the reality at all.”

Hutcherson shot to global fame starring in all four of the Hunger Games films, including The Hunger Games (2012), Catching Fire (2013), Mockingjay — Part 1 (2014) and Part 2 (2015). He was 23 in the final film.

The next year, he followed up with the critical flop In Dubious Battles, appearing alongside Selena Gomez, Nat Wolff, Bryan Cranston and James Franco, who also directed. Then, from 2017 to 2020, he led Hulu’s original sci-fi sitcom Future Man.

More recently, he has starred in the 2023 horror-mystery film Five Nights at Freddy’s and its new sequel, now in theaters, as well as The Beekeeper (2024) and season one of HBO’s new comedy I Love LA.