The Last of Us season 2: Isabela Merced has been cast as Ellie’s romantic interest Dina

Season 2 of the HBO series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us is expected to start filming in Vancouver, Canada this month, and a while back the show’s star Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie, said that one of the things she was most looking forward to about the new season was getting the chance to play out “the Dina storyline”. Because, “I had the one episode in season 1 with Ellie and Riley, but to have it as a storyline throughout the whole of the second game in terms of Ellie and Dina is really exciting.” Now we know who is going to be playing Dina, Ellie’s new romantic interest: Isabela Merced, whose previous credits include Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Sweet Girl.

According to Deadline, Dina is described as being “a free-wheeling spirit whose devotion to Ellie will be tested by the brutality of the world they inhabit.”

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, “an 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.”

Earlier this week, it was announced that Kaitlyn Dever from Booksmart and No One Will Save You has been cast in the role of Abby Anderson, a major character from the video game. Abby is described as being “a skilled soldier whose black-and-white view of the world is challenged as she seeks vengeance for those she loved.” Yesterday, we learned that Young Mazino of Beef will play Jesse, “a pillar of his community who puts everyone else’s needs before his own, sometimes at terrible cost.” Jesse also happens to be Dina’s ex.

Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann provided the following statement about casting Isabela Merced: “Dina is warm, brilliant, wild, funny, moral, dangerous and instantly lovable. You can search forever for an actor who effortlessly embodies all of those things, or you can find Isabela Merced right away. We couldn’t be prouder to have her join our family.”

Merced also has roles in Sony’s upcoming Marvel Comics adaptation Madame Web and Fede Alvarez’s Alien movie, and she’ll be playing Hawkgirl in James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy.

What do you think of Isabela Merced being cast as Dina in The Last of Us season 2? Let us know by leaving a comment below.