For all the naysayers out there, E! Online provides some convincing arguments on why Sam Claflin is perfect for the role of Finnick Odair in Catching Fire.

Let’s start with the surface stuff. Claflin’s got green eyes. Really. Not blue. Not gray. Green. Fans came down hard on Jennifer Lawrence for her lack of brown-ness, but maybe they can be happy with Claflin’s eye color; Finnick Odair’s eyes are also green. I’ve seen them. So there.If that isn’t enough, here are some more facts that prety clinch it for the guy:

• Claflin’s childhood clearly prepared him for the bloody Panem arena. “My parents bought me this book called Twisted Tales when I was a kid, which is all the fairy tales turned on their heads,” he told E!’s Marc Malkin. “At the end of Cinderella, the prince finds out she’s not a princess…so he chops her head off.”

• He’s said he spent his teens in “one of the roughest schools there is.” And, in the same way that Finnick has a “self-effacing humor,” according to the books, Claflin is down-to-Earth too. When I interviewed him last year, he modestly explained, “I come from the bottom of the ladder. I’m from Norwich. Not many people seem to know about it. It’s that sticky-outy bit over there. You know, in the east.”

Read more of their reasons here.