Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games: Actor, Story Arc and Fate

Gale Hawthorne is a character in the Hunger Games films, credited third in the cast of every main film and played by Liam Hemsworth. He first appears in The Hunger Games (2012), directed by Gary Ross, and returns in Catching Fire (2013), Mockingjay Part 1 (2014) and Mockingjay Part 2 (2015), all directed by Francis Lawrence.

What is his personality like? Going by what he does on screen, Gale is protective, quick to act and unwilling to stand by when the Capitol's Peacekeepers hurt people. That is a reading of his actions rather than of any single speech, but it fits how the films use him.

Where Peeta Mellark is the partner the Capitol builds into a love story for the cameras, Gale is the one who stays beside Katniss once the war begins. For the full cast around him, see the Hunger Games characters page and the Hunger Games cast list.

Gale's most important relationship is with Katniss Everdeen, and the films frame it against the public romance the Capitol builds for her and Peeta. In The Hunger Games (2012), Peeta announces in a televised interview that he has loved Katniss for years, which makes the pair look like star-crossed lovers.

Did Gale Hawthorne love Katniss? His actions point that way: he brings her news of her family's safety, joins the mission to rescue Peeta and stays beside her on the road to the Capitol. Whether his feelings are best described as romantic is a matter of how you read the performance, which is opinion rather than record.

What is the age gap between Katniss and Gale? The films never state a number. Katniss is sixteen when the story opens in The Hunger Games (2012), and Gale is presented as a close friend from the same district rather than as someone defined by his age, so any exact gap you may have seen comes from outside the films.

Is Gale related to Katniss? No. Katniss's family in the story is her mother and her younger sister Primrose, and Gale is credited under his own name as a separate character. His wider ties are to the rebels of District 13, to Finnick Odair and Boggs in the final unit, and to Peeta, with whom he serves in that unit even after Peeta's conditioning.

The strongest Gale scene, in my opinion, is the whipping in Catching Fire, because it shows his character in one action: he steps in to stop Peacekeepers beating people and pays for it in public. It also explains why the districts are tipping toward revolt, since Snow's Victory Tour has already made things worse.

Second, I would pick his news at the end of the same film. Gale is the one who tells Katniss that her family is safe and that District 12 has been destroyed, so the loss of home arrives through the person who shares it with her.

Why did Katniss stop liking Gale? It could be argued that the films never stage a break as a single event. The more plausible reading, and it is only a reading, is that the war pulls them apart: Katniss is bound to Peeta by what they survived in the arena and by his conditioning in Mockingjay Part 1, while Gale is carried along as a soldier. The bombing of the children and Prim in Mockingjay Part 2 then sits between them, and the film never lets either of them explain it away.

Compared with Peeta, Gale has less to do in the first film, but the Mockingjay films give him more direct action. Perhaps that is the fairest way to rank him: a supporting part that gains weight as the saga moves from games to war. For more context, see how the Hunger Games movies in order place his four appearances, and the Hunger Games timeline.