Casting Fire Face-Off: Zooey Deschanel V Astrid Berges-Frisbey

Posted June 21, 2012 by Tash in Casting

Continuing our week of special edition Casting Fire pieces, and after voting for Annie candidates last week, we have a result. The Annie finalists are Zooey Deschanel and Astrid Berges-Frisbey!

Again, it seems unlikely that either actress would land the part of Annie, and indeed the Mockingjay staff agreed that they’d like to see an unknown actress land the role. The votes were a lot more evenly spread for our second special edition, but if it were down to Zooey or Astrid who would you pick?

Casting Fire will resume normal transmission next week (Johanna Tuesday’s, Beetee Wednesday’s and Plutarch Thursday’s) as we still have no official casting announcements.

Crystal

Even though my husband is annoyingly in love with Zooey, it has nothing to do with why I don’t think she should be Annie Cresta. For one, Annie barely has any part in Catching Fire and only slightly more in Mockingjay so I think this won’t be a named actress. But most importantly, Zooey is way too old to play Annie. She’s supposed to be around the same age as Finnick, so she’s almost a decade too old. I think Astrid looks younger, but she also looks like she came from the Capitol. She’s too pristine looking to convince me she’s Annie Cresta, so it’s a no to both of them for me.

Dream cast/Casting prediction:
I wouldn’t mind seeing it go to an up and coming tv actress. The first person around the right age and look that comes to mind is Allison Miller. She played Skye in Terra Nova and I think she could be a decent fit for a small, yet key role. As for a hard guess, I have no clue.

Erin

If I have to pick between Astrid and Zooey to play Annie, I’d pick Astrid every time, even though I’ve never seen her act. Zooey is just too old… I mean, yes, Annie is meant to be older than Peeta, but Zooey played Josh’s music teacher on ‘Bridge to Terabithia’! And, to me at least, she looks her age (32). Astrid is 26, but in some of her pictures, she looks like a little girl that needs someone to take care of her, and that’s always how I picture Annie– frail, fragile, and innocent. And since Annie doesn’t really speak much, it would be great to have someone who looks the role playing her.

Dream cast/Casting prediction:
Truthfully, I want them to give the role of Annie to someone that none of us have ever really heard of. I want her to be someone that we don’t associate with any other role or movie, someone fresh and relatively unknown.

Tash

Well, Zooey can play crazy, that’s for certain! But that’s not the only aspect to her, as Erin has said she is fragile and innocent, and ultimately tortured by her own games, perhaps to a higher degree than Katniss. I’d just look at Zooey the whole time and be like “Oh there’s that kook” lol I haven’t seen Astrid in anything as I haven’t seen the last Pirates film, but she certainly looks vulnerable and delicate and that’s most definitely how I picture Annie. Looks wise she also does look young and around Finnick’s age as she’s supposed to, and she is quite pretty, I didn’t imagine Annie to be drop dead gorgeous, but rather pretty in a sweet way, and Astrid fits the bill there.

Dream cast/Casting prediction:
I don’t have a dream casting for Annie because whoever they cast could be blonde, brunette, tall, short etc so the field is wide open (even though the books describe her as dark haired with green eyes). I also hope that an unknown actress is cast for Annie, and let’s face it, she probably isn’t going to get a lot of screen time either. This could be a great opportunity for a young actress starting out and also means we get someone who doesn’t bring any pre-existing roles into it to distract us.

About the Author

Tash

A 26 year old Aussie country girl, Tash has degrees in Business (Marketing) and IT and is addicted to THG, WW2 airborne and spending copious amounts of time on the Internet.