A couple months ago, we heard the rumor that Kaitlyn Dever from Booksmart and No One Will Save You was in the running to play the role of the Abby Anderson character from the video game The Last of Us Part II when season 2 of the HBO video game adaptation TV series The Last of Us starts filming in Vancouver, Canada this month. Now, it’s official: Dever has been cast as Abby in The Last of Us season 2!
Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann provided The Hollywood Reporter with the following statement: “Our casting process for season two has been identical to season one: we look for world-class actors who embody the souls of the characters in the source material. Nothing matters more than talent, and we’re thrilled to have an acclaimed performer like Kaitlyn join Pedro, Bella and the rest of our family.“
There was a lot of talk about – and fan support for the idea of – Dever the Ellie character in The Last of Us. Dever even participated in a table read for the show… but it was decided that she was slightly too old for Ellie, so the role ended up going to Bella Ramsey, who is seven years younger than Dever. So in season 2, we’ll be meeting Dever’s Abby, “a skilled soldier whose black-and-white view of the world is challenged as she seeks vengeance for those she loved.”
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 also 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.
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