Jesse Plemons Joins The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping Cast in Major Role

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Jesse Plemons Joins The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping Cast in Major Role

The cast of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is adding a major name, with Jesse Plemons set to join the upcoming prequel movie in a big role.

Who is Jesse Plemons playing in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping?

Plemons will play the role of a younger Plutarch Heavensbee. Heavensbee was originally portrayed in the original The Hunger Games films by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and appears in several of the original films. In 2013’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Heavensbee is appointed as Head Gamemaker of the Hunger Games after Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley) is executed.

Heavensbee also serves as the Head Gamemaker of the 75th Hunger Games in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, where it is revealed that he is secretly a rebel insider, who later becomes the commander of District 13’s rebel forces. In Sunrise on the Reaping, Heavensbee will be introduced as a cameraman who records the reaping ceremony in District 12.

Plemons is best known for his roles in the hit TV shows Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad, and has also starred in a number of high-profile projects, including FX’s Fargo, Netflix’s Black Mirror, Killers of the Flower Moon, Kinds of Kindness, and more.

Alongside Plemons, Sunrise on the Reaping will also star Joseph Zada as a younger Haymitch Abernathy, as well as Whitney Peak, who will play Lenore Dove Baird, Haymitch’s girlfriend.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping will be released in United States theaters on November 20, 2026, from Lionsgate.

The Hunger Games prequel movie is being directed by Francis Lawrence, who has also helmed a number of the franchise’s previous entries. Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson are producing the film, while Cameron MacConomy serves as executive producer.

Billy Ray is writing the script for Sunrise on the Reaping. Ray worked on the screenplay for the first Hunger Games movie, which was released in 2012, and earned an Oscar nomination for penning 2013’s Captain Phillips.

He’s also worked on the scripts for movies such as 1997’s Volcano, 2003’s Shattered Glass (which he also directed), 2004’s Suspect Zero, 2009’s State of Play, 2018’s Overlord, 2019’s Gemini Man, 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, 2019’s Richard Jewell, and more.