Contrary to very, very recent rumors around The Last of Us suggesting that Mahershala Ali would be taking a lead role in HBO's The Last of Us series, it turns out the real casting news was just around the corner and just as exciting. Now it turns out that The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal will star as Joel in the upcoming show, and this time, it's for real.
The highly-anticipated series, headed by the game's creative director and writer Neil Druckmann as well as Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, has apparently finally found its two leads. Bella Ramsey of Game of Thrones fame has been brought on to play Ellie, and now it seems a reunion of sorts is in order, as Pascal returns to HBO to work alongside his fellow Game of Thrones star.
The Last of Us features Joel and Ellie as the leads, with the former taking a job to smuggle the latter through a dangerous post-apocalyptic world infested by plague-created zombies. Ellie, a lone teenager, appears to have a unique resistance to the mutated fungus that ravages the world. It's up to the unlikely duo to make their way to a resistance base where her immunity can be studied in the search for a cure.
Pascal is enjoying an explosion in popularity thanks to his role as main character Din Djarin in Disney Plus' The Mandalorian. The Star Wars spinoff effectively shot him the rest of the way into stardom after making a modest jump during his time as Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, since her debut on the same series, Ramsey currently stars in Netflix's Hilda as the voice of the titular character.
While the two actors didn't exactly interact on Game of Thrones due to appearing in separate seasons, that shared experience might help them achieve the chemistry fans wish to see between the surrogate father and daughter in The Last of Us. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why they were cast. But regardless of the actual motivation behind the casting decisions, they are still solid choices. Plus, many fans already appear to be pleased at the notion of these two already well-liked stars taking part in a franchise close to the hearts of a rather large fanbase.
There's no telling where The Last of Us will go, at least aside from the same story beats as the original game, but hopefully this is a good indication of how seriously the showrunners are taking it. Producer Mazin has already expressed his wishes to include at least one intense moment that was actually cut from The Last of Us the game. So fans clearly have plenty to look forward to.
Source: Deadline