Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsey Cast As Joel & Ellie For HBO’s ‘Last Of Us’ Series
HBO appears to have found their Joel & Ellie for the upcoming ‘The Last Of Us‘ tv series according to reports, as it’s revealed Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsey will take the lead roles.
Based on the critically acclaimed video game ‘The Last of Us’, developed by Naughty Dog exclusively for the PlayStation platforms, the story takes place 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.
This won’t be the first time Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsey have appeared in the same drama, although I believe it is their first time on-screen together. Pascal played Oberyn Martell in the 4th Season of ‘Game Of Thrones’, whilst Ramsey put in an extremely memorable turn as Lyanna Mormont in the fantasy series.
Pascal starred in 3 seasons of Netflix’s ‘Narcos’, and most recently popped up as the villain Maxwell Lord in ‘Wonder Woman 1984’. He also, of course, has most been playing Din Djarin in Disney’s ‘The Mandalorian’ series. However, do not panic, he is not leaving that role. Bear in mind, he is not always the guy in the beskar suit when they are filming. Due to the character having his face covered most of the time, and the number of stunts involved, there are also three stunt actors who handle a lot of the action, so he has a lot more time to spare than you might think for a lead role.
Along with ‘Game Of Thrones’, Bella Ramsey starred as Mildred Hubble in 3 Seasons of CBBC’s ‘The Worst Witch’, and most recently played Angelica in the BBC/HBO adaptation of ‘His Dark Materials’. She also voices the title character of ‘Hilda’ in the Netflix animated series, based on the graphic novel by Luke Pearson.
Craig Mazin, the man who created the multi-award-winning drama ‘Chernobyl’, will exec produce and write the script alongside writer and creative director of the original game, Neil Druckmann. Carolyn Strauss (‘Chernobyl’, ‘Game of Thrones’) will also exec produce with Evan Wells, the president of Naughty Dog, and PlayStation Productions’ Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan. The project is a co-production between Sony Pictures Television, Word Games, Naughty Dog and PlayStation Productions, the people behind the upcoming ‘Uncharted’ movie.
When ‘The Last of Us’ was launched it sold 1.3 million units in the first 7 days, becoming the biggest video game launch of 2013 at the time. After 3 weeks, that jumped to 3.4 million units, topping charts around the globe. As of 2018, it had sold over 17 million copies across the original PS3 release and the remastered version for PS4. The sequel, ‘The Last of Us II’, launched in June 2020 and was the biggest launch of the year. It is currently the third highest-grossing game ever on PlayStation in the US. In addition to phenomenal sales, the game garnered critical acclaim across the board, picking up over 200 awards, including many Game Of The Year accolades.
We don’t yet know when ‘The Last Of Us‘ tv series will arrive, but it will be available on HBO and HBO Max in the US. The series should fall under Sky’s overall deal for HBO shows on Sky Atlantic in the UK, but we’ll let you know when we have some more details.
