The HBO series based on the hit video game The Last of Us is scheduled to premiere on January 15, 2023, at 9pm ET/PT – and cast member Murray Bartlett, who plays post-pandemic survivalist Frank in the series, has a lot of positive things to say about the scripts for the show. Speaking with Collider, Bartlett said, “The game is incredibly cinematic. The characters are really fantastic. It’s an amazing, complicated story with really deep themes in it. It’s an amazing creation. They’ve really beautifully adapted all of those elements into this show.“
Bartlett went on to say, “The scripts that I had to work with, one particular script is one of the best hours of television I’ve ever read. It’s beautiful. It’s beautifully written. There are these zombie creatures in it, but it’s tender and it’s human. I think it’s gonna be really special.“
The The Last of Us video game’s story 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.
The cast of HBO’s The Last of Us includes Pedro Pascal as 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”; 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.
The show’s writer Craig Mazin is also one of the directors on the series, as are Kantemir Balagov (Beanpole), Jasmila Zbanic (Quo vadis, Aida), Peter Hoar (Doctor Who), Jeremy Webb (The Punisher), Liza Johnson (What We Do in the Shadows), and the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann.
The Last of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and game developer Naughty Dog. Druckmann serves as executive producer alongside Carolyn Strauss, Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation Productions, and Mazin.
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