Josh Hutcherson was trying to escape Los Angeles once and for all. For the better part of a decade, the “Hunger Games” star and his girlfriend, Spanish actor Claudia Trysac, split their time between Los Angeles and Madrid, but they grew tired of the eight-hour time difference between the two cities. So Hutcherson rented an apartment in Brooklyn, and in April, the couple flew from Spain to New York City to start a new life on the East Coast.While driving from JFK Airport, Hutcherson received a phone call from his agent.
“‘How do you feel about going back to the airport now?'” Hutcherson recalls asking his agent. “I was like, ‘I don’t feel good at all, not at all! Why?'”
The agent explained that Rachel Sennott, star of indie hits “Bottoms” and “Shiva Baby,” is launching her first comedy series on HBO and wants Hutcherson to play her character’s boyfriend. However, filming was scheduled to begin in about two weeks, and the final title of the show was “I Love LA,” which also served as the filming location.
It was the call Hutcherson had been waiting for years. He has been an actor since he was 9 years old. He made his first starring role at the age of 13 in Zathura: A Space Adventure. At the age of 16, he had a key supporting role in the 2010 Best Picture nominee The Kids Are Alright. At the age of 18, he was cast as Peeta Mellark in The Hunger Games, catapulting him to global superstardom. However, as Hutcherson approached the age of 30, roles began to dry up.
“I spent a few years doing very little and living a lean life,” he says quietly, twirling a coffee cup outside a bistro in Los Angeles’ Echo Park neighborhood. “A lot of young actors don’t make the transition and the industry kicks them out. I thought, is this the end?”
In fact, Hutcherson, 33, is at the peak of a new career. On December 5th, he will star in Blumhouse’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” an adaptation of the wildly popular video game series. The first installment of the Freddy’s series became a surprise hit in 2023, grossing $292 million worldwide. And after scrambling to get out of his New York City lease, he actually joined the cast of I Love LA, an experience he says “rekindled in me a love and appreciation for the job.” “I’ve always wanted to do an HBO comedy on Sunday nights. It’s a dream come true for me.”
Rachel Sennott and Josh Hutcherson’s “I Love LA”
Kenny Laubacher/HBO
In “I Love LA,” which first aired Nov. 2 and was just renewed for a second season through Dec. 21, Hutcherson plays Dylan, a schoolteacher who loves his live-in girlfriend, Maia (Sennott), even though her ambitions to become a talent manager wreak havoc on his life.
“I grew up watching him in ‘Bridge to Terabithia’ and ‘The Hunger Games,’ and there’s just something about him, how warm and lovely he is,” Sennott told Variety in October. “I was very impressed with his comedy and improvisational talent, and I think for the audience, when they see him, they feel a little bit like their own boyfriend.”
Hutcherson smiles when I tell him why Sennott cast him. “I’m known as a kind-hearted golden boy, but I’m not mad about that,” he says. He’s trying to break free from that perception, most recently playing the villain of a toxic techie in the 2024 Jason Statham action film The Beekeeper. But on “I Love LA,” Hutcherson says he was “glad to lean into” his good persona. “If that meant getting me on set and filming this with Rachel, then so be it.”
Part of the appeal was that Hutcherson literally walked to work during the eight-week shoot. “In the original script, we mentioned Erewhon and Tennant of the Trees and the reservoir,” he says, marking out L.A.’s East Side landmarks. “That’s my circuit. That’s where I’ve been stuck for years.”
He also felt at home as the only character on the show not attached to getting into show business. “Even though I’ve been doing this since I was nine years old and I’m obsessed with this industry, I don’t feel like I’m that obsessed with it in many ways,” he says. “I don’t go to events unless I have to. I’m not active on social media unless a studio wants me to come. I’ve always had one foot in and one foot out. When I started, I had no desire to be famous. I just wanted to make movies and TV shows. I feel like that aligns with Dylan. He just wants to exist and do what he cares about.”
The opportunity to play an everyday adult living in the world of 2025 is rare for any actor right now, and Hutcherson doesn’t take it for granted. “I grew up using tennis balls and green screens,” he says. “We don’t have to try to convince the audience that we’re in a dystopian society X years in the future or that animatronics are being haunted by ghost children.”
Courtesy of Universal/Everett Collection
He’s referring, of course, to the movie Freddy’s, which revolves around a creepy, long-closed pizzeria like Chuck E. Cheese’s and a killer robot animal mascot that is the embodiment of the soul of a murdered child. The elaborate animatronic costumes created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop can only be worn by performers for 30 minutes at a time before becoming overwhelmed by the weight and heat. And even if you wear a costume, there is no guarantee that it will function properly.
“The stunt actors have to turn and look to the right, and three people with remote controls have to time their blinks,” Hutcherson says. “We do 10 takes because the animatronic’s movements aren’t working perfectly. In that one take, the animatronic was perfect. You better be perfect, too, because that’s what’s going to happen in the movie.”
Hutcherson estimates that the sequel will feature “more than twice as many” creatures as the first film, and one character, called Mangle, will require “a team of 10 or 12 people to control.”
“And the animatronics might find a way to get out of the pizza shop. That would be a big deal,” he added.
But wait, didn’t the titular Freddy come out of the pizzeria in the first movie?
“Yes, but there are certain rules to the game, and they are-” he says, his voice slowing and pitching higher with each word. “It’s vague. I don’t fully understand it, but I know it’s hard for animatronics to leave. It’s a whole thing.”
When Hutcherson first signed on for Freddy’s, he didn’t fully understand the size of the “absolutely rabid fan base” for the mid-2010s video game that inspired the movie “until the movie came out.” But when he talks about filming the sequel, once again directed by Emma Tammi and written by the game’s creator Scott Cawthon, I get the feeling that Hutcherson is still on a free ride.
Josh Hutcherson and director Emma Tammi on the set of “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2”
Ryan Green/Universal Pictures/Courtesy of Everett Collection
“The main focus is to make something that FNAF fans will be excited about,” he says, pronouncing the acronym “hoo-naf” just like the fans do. “Sometimes I think, ‘This doesn’t make sense! How could I do this?’ And they say, ‘That came from the game.’ ” he started laughing as he raised his hands in surrender. “‘Okay, okay, okay, I’m on, I’m on.’ But it’s crazy.”
Meeting the demanding expectations of a vocal fan base is certainly familiar territory for Hutcherson, who spent six months alongside Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth in the maelstrom of “The Hunger Games.” As his time with the series was coming to an end with 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Hutcherson says he went through a period where he didn’t want anything to do with the series. “I was like, ‘Fuck it,'” he says matter-of-factly. “I was thrown into a place of notoriety that I never dreamed of or wanted. It robbed me of my privacy.”
To this day, Hutcherson avoids crowded public places, including Madrid, and strangers shouting “Peeta” at him are common. But he has come to appreciate everything The Hunger Games has given him, and his face lights up when I bring up the possibility of making another film with a core team that includes director Francis Lawrence and co-star Woody Harrelson. “I’d love to get back on set with Frances, Jen, Liam and Woody,” he says. “I don’t need any convincing. I’ll be there right away.”
It could happen sooner than expected. Francis Lawrence is developing a film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel Sunrise on the Reaping. The novel chronicles the Hunger Games experience from the 16-year-old perspective of Haymitch Abernathy, played by Harrelson, and ends with an epilogue set after the events of Mockingjay, featuring Haymitch, Peeta, and series heroine Katniss Everdeen.
Hutcherson learned about the coda when the book hit stores in March. So I ask, is he in the new movie?
He smiled broadly. “That would be a dream come true,” he said, holding my gaze.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me, I say.
“It would be a dream come true,” he repeated. “Do dreams come true? Sometimes, sometimes, they don’t. That’s right.”
Selome Hailu contributed to this article.
