In cinema and television there is no shortage of productions that, recycling a popular intellectual property to which they have the rights, use the material as a starting point to later emancipate themselves at the level of story, tone or message. The last of us, however, did the opposite: show a reverential respect for the video game. One of the ways he has had to show it has been to hire prominent video game actors, either to play the same character or another. And which actors from the original cast have passed through the first season?
“I was on the phone with Neil Druckmann and I possibly said something like: “Are you serious or are you kidding?” I was deeply honored and excited, and then I felt nervous because it had been a few years since I last met her, ”explained Merle Dandridge about hiring her in The last of us. She got the call to play Marlene, the same character she had played in the video game.
Marlene, furthermore, is one of the few characters that had a constant presence in the season: she was present in the pilot, as the member of the Fireflies who watched over Ellie from turning into a mushroom-girl after being bitten, and also in the season finale, when the protagonists arrived at the Salt Lake City hospital where the young woman could be investigated. And, in his opinion, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the creators and showrunners, were faithful to the video game that Druckmann had signed.
“One thing that calls to me is to see myself and understand when I love and know Marlene deeply, but also how much they care about this world and the reference material, and how willing they are to look into this world, squeeze everything they can, and then explore a new inspiration, too, in the most authentic way to serve the center of the story”, he reflected in an interview.
The actor from series like Castle Rock or Justified played Tommy, Joel’s brother, in the two The last of us video games. Instead, for the television adaptation, Mazin and Druckmann booked him a newly created role: Perry, a member of the rebel faction in control of Kansas City, and right-hand man to Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), the revenge-seeking ringleader among who betrayed her
About the experience of working on a set with the sets prepared, instead of having to imagine everything like when working on the Naughty Boy video game, Pierce was struck by how much attention was paid to “every detail, every brick” and “aged 20 years” for the post-apocalyptic universe of The last of us to be credible: “I have never seen anything like it.
Regarding his character in the fourth and fifth episodes, he explained that he approached him as if he were “the archetype of Kurosawa samurai” because of the loyalty and professionalism with which he served Kathleen. And he believes, in fact, that its plot connects perfectly with one of the main themes of the series: “Something that both the game and the series are about is the idea that love can lead us to do truly terrible things” .
This actor was an expert in video game interpretation when Druckmann trusted him to recreate Joel in the video game. As reported in media such as TVLine, his involvement in the production even led them to be inspired by his traits to finish defining the character as Baker’s talent for music, which they turned into Joel’s dream of being a singer. And, since he assumed that he would not play Joel in the television adaptation (the role fell to Pedro Pascal), he was also surprised when he received the call to play a secondary character.
In the series, the original Joel plays James, one of the members of the cannibal community who appears in the eighth episode, and David’s right-hand man. “To me, he’s a pragmatic man, and James is clearly someone who wants to be on David’s good side” because he “realizes that David is the Devil” and it’s better to fall in love with him than out of favor. And it is that, in his opinion, something that the television version of The last of us has done very well is “taking characters that existed on the periphery” of the video game to bring them to the fore.
And what do you think about the work of Pedro Pascal? “Selfishly, I wanted them to cast someone who cared as much about (the character) as I did. I just wanted someone to show me something new about Joel, something that I might have missed, and Pedro does this in every episode in some way.” And, since he didn’t even want to play Joel, seeing the Chilean actor in the role has been “exciting”.
And finally, Ashley Johnson, the Ellie from the video game, made an appearance at the start of the season finale as Anna, Ellie’s mother. “To be able to birth the character and to be the first character to fight to keep Ellie alive… yeah, all the layers are not lost on me,” she explained to Entertainment Weekly.
In fact, her participation is one of the most significant among the actors in the video game since, in addition to playing Ellie’s mother, it serves to explain the young woman’s immunity to Cordyceps: since she was bitten during childbirth, Ellie was sufficiently exposed to the virus enough to develop immunity.
About Bella Ramsey, her substitute on television, she only has good words: “It is a joy to see her because she is very good. And I think there are so many scenes that are elevated by her abilities and talent.” In this sense, sometimes it is difficult for him to watch the series because “I am seeing these characters (the versions of Pedro and Bella) and I fall in love with them. And it breaks my heart because I know life is not going better for them.”
