Haymitch Hunger Games: Who Haymitch Abernathy Is and Who Plays Him

Haymitch Abernathy is a past Hunger Games winner from District 12 who is assigned to mentor the district's tributes, and Woody Harrelson plays him in every main film. He is introduced in The Hunger Games 2012, directed by Gary Ross, where Katniss Everdeen volunteers in place of her sister Primrose and travels to the Capitol with Peeta Mellark. In that film he is a drunken mentor who is expected to coach the pair.

He is credited simply as Haymitch Abernathy, and he is billed fourth in each of the four main films, behind Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth. That billing holds from Catching Fire through Mockingjay Part 1 and Mockingjay Part 2, which shows how settled his place in the ensemble is. He is not among the first 15 billed cast of the prequel Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Three questions come up often. How many kills did Haymitch get? The four main films never give a number, because his own Games are not shown on screen and he is introduced only as a past winner. What does he look like? On screen he is Woody Harrelson's Haymitch, a drunken mentor, and the films do not offer a fuller physical description beyond what the performance shows. Why was his family killed? The four main films do not explain it either, so any answer belongs to the backstory outside those films rather than to what they put on screen.

As a former winner, he is the tributes' one direct connection to the Games themselves. If you want the wider cast around him, see the hunger games characters index or the hunger games cast page.

Haymitch and Katniss share a relationship built on coaching, friction and, eventually, shared purpose. The pairing of Katniss Everdeen and Haymitch drives the end of Catching Fire, because she wakes in a hovercraft and learns that the arena's destruction was part of a planned rebel rescue. She attacks Haymitch in anger and is sedated. As for whether he betrayed her, the films show a Katniss who is furious with him, but they also place Haymitch aboard the hovercraft with the people who saved her.

His bond with Peeta Mellark is the other pillar. Peeta volunteers to go in place of Haymitch in the Quarter Quell, which is the clearest sign of how the District 12 team looks after its own.

On the hovercraft he travels with Plutarch Heavensbee, Finnick Odair and Beetee Latier. Effie Trinket is billed immediately after him in every main film, and the two work together as the adult support around the tributes. Fans often ask about Haymitch and Lenore, or who he loved, but the four main films do not cover his backstory.

In my opinion, Haymitch's strongest scene is the one in Catching Fire where Katniss wakes in the hovercraft and turns on him. It could be argued that this is the point where the character stops being a comic mentor and becomes a moral problem for the heroine, because she has just learned the rescue was planned and he is the person she attacks. Harrelson plays it without asking for sympathy, which I think is the right choice.

The second moment I would pick is his place in the Quarter Quell setup. The tributes come from the pool of past victors, and Peeta volunteers to go in place of Haymitch. It is a small change in the staging, but it shows how the two relate to each other. Paradoxically, the character is more affecting for being kept out of the arena.

The third is his reading of the letter at the close of Mockingjay Part 2. After a film full of deaths, it is a quieter payoff than a battle, and it ends with him helping to clear Katniss. If you are new to the saga, start with The Hunger Games 2012 to see the drunken mentor before the later films complicate him.