Bella Ramsey, Pedro Pascal, Anna Torv, Nick Offerman (HBO)
After The White Lotus and House of the Dragon dominated Sunday night viewing in 2022, HBO is hoping to keep its streak of appointment television going with The Last of Us. And from what we've seen of it, that seems entirely possible. Based on the acclaimed video game that’s been praised in some circles as the greatest game of all time, this adaptation comes from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and the video game's creative director Neil Druckmann. The series is set in the aftermath of a global apocalypse where a mutated Cordyceps fungus ravaged the world's population and turned the infected into zombie-esque hive-mind killing machines. One man is tasked with bringing a young girl across the country to safety and possibly to save humanity. The word "harrowing" is used in just about every commentary about the game, so this should be a gripping good time.
The 10-episode first season is said to cover the entirety of the first video game, while Season 2 would supposedly cover the 2020 release, The Last of Us, Part II. Mazin and Druckmann have both talked about having no intention of going beyond the material in the videos games, with Druckmann assuring, "We won’t run into the same issue as Game of Thrones since Part II doesn’t end on a cliffhanger." Two seasons may well be all we get with these characters.
The cast is stacked with talent, including more than a few familiar faces, especially if you're an HBO loyalist. Here, we take a closer look at the cast, which characters come from the video game, and which are new to the series. Additionally, the series will feature performances from Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, and Anthony Pierce, who voiced the roles of Joel, Ellie, and Tommy, respectively, in the original video game.
Pedro Pascal as Joel
Twenty years after the Cordyceps infection brought the world to its knees, Joel is a hardened survivor living in a quarantine zone in Boston. Tormented by a trauma in his past, Joel must battle past all that in order to get a young girl to safety across the breadth of post-apocalyptic America. Joel is played by Pedro Pascal, a familiar face to Game of Thrones fans for his breakthrough role as Oberyn Martell. Since then, he's been led Disney+'s The Mandalorian and starred in films like Wonder Woman 1984 and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
Bella Ramsey as Ellie
Another veteran of Game of Thrones — though she never overlapped with Pascal — is Bella Ramsey, who played fan-favorite character Lyanna Mormont in the show's final seasons. This past year, she starred as the title character in Lena Dunham's medieval coming-of-age comedy Catherine Called Birdy. She's playing the role of Ellie, the enigmatic 14-year-old girl who Joel must shepherd across the country because she may be the key to saving humanity. She's a defiant, tough little orphan who's never known the pre-apocalyptic world, and she and Joel form a tentative bond along the way.
