Welcome one, welcome all, to the next edition of our Cast This series! For this edition, we’d like to tackle the question of Petals Open to the Moon, or ‘Pet’ as she is called when we first meet her. I don’t want to spoil who this character is for those who have yet to finish reading the book (or are waiting to read it until after the movie, as I know some people prefer to do), but we know from the book that her voice is described as “high and trilling”. “It was a child’s hand, except for the long pink-and-white nails, filed into perfect, smooth curves. The skin was fair, with a strange silvery cast to it and, entirely incongruous, a scattering of golden freckles…The face in the mirror was roundish, too, not quite oval. Small. The skin on the face had the same silver undertone – silver like moonlight – as the hand did, with another handful of the golden freckles across the bridge of the nose. Wide gray eyes, the silver of the soul shimmering faintly behind the soft color, framed by tangled gold lashes. Pale pink lips, full and almost round, like a baby’s. Small, even white teeth behind them. A dimple in the chin. And everywhere, everywhere, waving hair that stood away from my face in a bright halo and fell below where the mirror showed…Like an exact translation from Flower to human [describing her face]…This body looked much younger than her true age, hovering on the verge of seventeen.” We know that Pet is small in stature, a face and body that causes those around her to want to help and protect her, and that her heart is described as fluttery more than once.
There have been some recent tweets with Raeden Greer (Lily) that have hinted towards the casting of Pet. Currently, this knowledge is being kept secret, so we are left to guess.
June 25th:
@RaedenGreer: “@AmoTheHost: @RaedenGreer Raiden! you know who is the actress who plays the role of Pet?” Quite the burning question. I do have the answer”
@AmoTheHost: “@RaedenGreer for real? and can you tell us!?”
@RaedenGreer: “@AmoTheHost I’m not going to tell…but you’re gonna be blown away and more than pleased, I think.”
@TheHostMovie: “I like that we don’t know who Pet is in #TheHost film. Will be a nice surprise for fans if unknown until the film hits. -S @RaedenGreer”
@RaedenGreer: “@TheHostMovie True. I hope it stays secret until then, but who knows!”
I especially find it interesting that even Raeden wants this knowledge to remain a secret until the film is released. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of a movie hiding its casting decisions before, so this is quite intriguing for me :).
For those who have been following us awhile, you may remember that we tried to do a Cast This post for this character before (it was one of my first posts), but it was unfortunately overshadowed by news finally being released about the movie. Because of this, there was not much response to the original Cast This post. We would LOVE to hear everyone’s thoughts on who they think may have been cast that is causing such secrecy and, from Greer, at least, such excitement. For kicks, I have included below those actresses who were chosen during the previous post (though I want to be clear that none received more than 3 votes, so there was no truly clear favorite).
I must say that I’m not particularly attached to any of these actresses in the part of Pet. I feel that they’re all too old, in reality and in appearance, save for Elle Fanning. My concern with Elle is that she may be too young, even. Since the other main actors in the film have been aged down slightly to accommodate Saoirse Ronan (Melanie/Wanderer) in the part, even admitted by Stephanie Meyer in a recent interview with MTV, it would make sense that Pet would need to be an actress even younger than the others. Elle, however, is barely 14 and that might be pushing it. It does describe her as looking young for her age and I have seen 17 year olds who looked even younger than Elle, so it is reasonable that she could play the part. I saw Elle’s performance recently in ‘I Bought a Zoo’ and she did a very good job. She also looks a good deal older than the pictures I’ve found of her before. I could definitely see her playing a 17 year old. I will say that, looking through the above actresses, judging simply by appearance, my opinion has changed since the last time this post was done and I would favor Elle over the others. If I stumble across an actress I feel would better fit the part, I will make sure to comment about it, but above all, the opinions of all of you, our readers, matters greatly to us, so please let us know who you think they reasonably would have selected for this important character. 🙂
