HBO’s casting team has an unparalleled eye for talent. They cast James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, Michael K. Williams as Omar Little, and Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen. They’ve given huge stars like Sydney Sweeney and Michael B. Jordan their first break early in their careers. They’ve stacked the ensembles of shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, The White Lotus, and Succession with scene-stealers, all stealing scenes from each other.
Three years ago, HBO attempted its first video game adaptation when it turned Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic classic The Last of Us into a prestige TV drama. For decades, movie and TV adaptations of video games have been notoriously terrible, but The Last of Us — along with Arcane and Fallout — has helped to break that curse.
Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin teamed up with The Last of Us games’ own creator, Neil Druckmann, to mount a fully faithful adaptation (at least in its first season). When The Last of Us premiered in 2023, it was an instant hit with both critics and audiences. The writing struck all the right emotional beats, the VFX team brought Naughty Dog’s zombie-infested wasteland to life, and the cold opens and flashbacks and subplots helped deepen the themes and expand the worldbuilding from the games.
But arguably the biggest factor in The Last of Us’ success has been its cast. Audiences came for the zombie-slaying action and post-apocalyptic spectacle, but they stayed for the surrogate father-daughter bond between Joel and Ellie.
The Last Of Us’ Casting Team Found The Perfect Pair To Play Joel & Ellie
The emotional core of The Last of Us games is the relationship between Joel, a grizzled smuggler grieving the loss of his daughter, and Ellie, the 14-year-old sidekick who gives him a new lease on life. What made the game such a breath of fresh air was that audiences really felt that emotional bond between Joel and Ellie, because they felt Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson’s on-screen chemistry.
Recasting those roles was one of the biggest casting challenges that HBO has faced. When they were casting Tony Soprano or Jimmy McNulty or Angela Abar, they were building the character from scratch, because no one else had played those roles before. But Joel and Ellie had already been played to perfection, and made iconic, by Baker and Johnson, so HBO had to find two actors who could replicate that dynamic from the games without just doing a cheap imitation of it.
They ended up finding the perfect pairing in Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. They each have their own distinctive take on the characters — Pascal’s Joel is more sensitive and emotionally vulnerable than Baker’s, and Ramsey’s Ellie is even angrier and more acid-tongued than Johnson’s — but they both deftly recapture the spirit that Baker and Johnson had brought to the roles. Pascal and Ramsey are individually perfect for their parts, but more importantly, they have that unmistakable chemistry that made the relationship ring so true in the games.
Even The Last Of Us’ Guest Actors Are Incredible
It’s not just Pascal and Ramsey; everyone in The Last of Us’ cast is an incredible actor at the top of their game. From Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother, Tommy, to Isabela Merced as Ellie’s best friend and love interest, Dina, every supporting turn in this show is strong enough to support its own series.
Kaitlyn Dever has brought new depth to the most controversial character from the games, Abby, and humanized her just as effectively as Laura Bailey did. Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett turned a couple of minor characters from the first game into one of the greatest love stories ever told. The Last of Us may just be a “video game show,” but it has some of the finest acting on television.
The Last of Us
8/10
- Release Date
-
January 15, 2023
- Network
-
HBO
- Showrunner
-
Craig Mazin
- Directors
-
Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado