It turns out we’ll be seeing less of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2. Director Francis Lawrence chose not to use CGI to help finish the late actor’s incomplete scenes on the sequel.

CGI and body doubles were used extensively to finish the late Paul Walker’s role as Brian O'Conner on Furious 7 earlier this year, and fans were left wondering how filmmakers would account for Hoffman’s remaining scenes on Mockingjay.

Hoffman reportedly had eight days left of filming when he died on Feb. 2, 2014, of a drug overdose.

Filmgoers will notice this week that Plutarch doesn’t show up in some of the group scenes toward the film’s end. But he’s most notably absent in an extended sequence in which the Head Gamemaker is supposed to console Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen.

The scene was rewritten and Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch Abernathy now reads a letter from Plutarch.

“Phil was supposed to be in that scene with Katniss,” the director says at a press conference for Mockingjay — Part 2. “That was one of the big scenes he had not completed when he died. So that was our change because of that.”



Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Plutarch Heavensbee and Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch Abernathy in a scene from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

For her part, Jennifer Lawrence was happy that there was no “digital trickery” used to insert Hoffman back into Mockingjay.

“He was one of the greatest actors, I think, of all time. I just think to try to fake a Philip Seymour Hoffman performance would have been catastrophic and I would never want to do that,” Lawrence told Variety. “I just think this was the best way to be able to get around such a horrible thing.”

Twitter: @markhdaniell

mark.daniell@sunmedia.ca