The Last of Us season 2 might be adding Kaitlyn Dever as Abby Anderson

When showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin were gearing up to go into production on the first season of the HBO series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us, there was a lot of talk about – and fan support for the idea of – Kaitlyn Dever from Booksmart and No One Will Save You playing the Ellie character. Dever even participated in a table read for the show… but she didn’t end up being in it. Now Druckmann and Mazin are preparing for The Last of Us season 2, which is (according to Production List) expected to start filming in Vancouver, Canada on January 7, 2024. For this season, they’ll have to find someone to play the Abby Anderson character from the video game The Last of Us Part II. And industry scooper Jeff Sneider hears that they’re circling back to Dever for this role.

Sneider wrote, “Back in August, The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin told the L.A. Times that he had found an actress to play Abby Anderson in Season 2. To that end, I hear that Kaitlyn Dever is in talks to tackle the role. Should a deal be made, Dever would join Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in Season 2, which is expected to premiere on HBO in 2025. In the game, Abby is positioned as a rival to Ramsey’s Ellie — a role that Dever herself was once eyed for.”

The story of the The Last of Us video game is set years after a fungal plague wiped out much of humanity, transforming most into vicious zombie-like monsters, the story follows Joel, who’s living in a militarized quarantine zone. He has a close relationship with Tess, who operates in the black market of this community. Together, they’ve become known by the local criminal underworld for their ruthlessness. On a mission to reclaim their stolen guns, they run into the leader of the Fireflies, a resistance group, who tasks them with smuggling a young girl named Ellie out of the zone. This mission soon becomes much more than they were prepared for. 

For the HBO series, Pedro Pascal plays Joel, who is “tormented by past trauma and failure. He must trek across a pandemic-ravaged America, all the while protecting a girl who represents the last hope of humanity”. He is joined in the cast by Bella Ramsey as Ellie, “a 14-year-old orphan who has never known anything but a ravaged planet and who struggles to balance her instinct for anger and defiance with her need for connection and belonging… as well as the newfound reality that she may be the key to saving the world”; Anna Torv as Tess, “a smuggler and hardened survivor in a post-pandemic world”; Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy, “a former soldier who hasn’t lost his sense of idealism and hope for a better world”; Merle Dandridge as Marlene, “the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime”; Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah; Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, “a rebel in a quarantine zone”; Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett as Bill and Frank, “two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town”; and Storm Reid as Ellie’s best friend Riley.

Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, who did the motion-capture performances for Joel and Ellie in the video game, are also in the cast of the show. Baker plays James, “a senior member of a group of settlers who must fight to keep their community alive in the face of increasingly brutal odds.” Baker also hosts a podcast that serves as a companion to the TV series. Johnson’s character is Anna, “a pregnant woman, alone and on the run, who must give birth under the most terrifying of circumstances.”

The Last of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and game developer Naughty Dog. Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann serve as executive producers alongside Carolyn Strauss, Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation Productions.

We had previously heard a rumor that Florence Pugh of Midsommar, Black Widow, and Oppenheimer had received an offer to play Abby, but that was before the strikes came and went.

What do you think of the idea of Kaitlyn Dever playing Abby Anderson in The Last of Us season 2? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.