The Last of Us: Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are HBO series’ Joel and Ellie

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Pedro Pascal's star has been rising steadily in recent years, thanks to roles in Game of Thrones, Narcos, The Mandalorian, and Wonder Woman 1984, among others. His name is everywhere now – so it's a huge deal that HBO has just gotten him to sign on to star in their series adaptation of the Sony PlayStation video game franchise The Last of Us. 17-year-old actress Bella Ramsey, best known for playing Lyanna Mormont on Game of Thrones, will be his co-star in the series.

Written and executive produced by Chernobyl's Craig Mazin alongside Neil Druckmann, the game's writer and creative director, The Last of Us will be set 

twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel (Pascal), a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie (Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

Pascal's character Joel, "tormented by past trauma and failure, must trek across a pandemic-ravaged America, all the while protecting a girl who represents the last hope of humanity." Ramsey's Ellie is "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."

The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and game developer Naughty Dog. Carolyn Strauss, Naughty Dog's Evan Wells, and Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation Productions also serve as executive producers.

Kantemir Balagov, who earned a lot of attention for his Russian-language dramas Closeness and Beanpole, will be directing the pilot episode.