Pedro Pascal is one of the most sought-after actors right now, and he’s just picked up another huge role.
According to Deadline, Pedro Pascal will play Joel in the adaptation of the PlayStation smash-hit franchise The Last of Us coming to HBO and HBO Max.
Rumours had circulated that Mahershala Ali had been offered the role, but these were not true. Ali had been considered for the show, but a deal was never reached.
Pedro Pascal is best known for his performance as Din Djarin, the lead role in the hugely popular Disney+ series The Mandalorian. Recently, he has also played villain Max Lord in Wonder Woman 1984, Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones and Javier Peña in Narcos.
This casting news came just hours after child actor Bella Ramsey was announced as Joel’s counterpart, Ellie.
Bella Ramsey rose to prominence as Lyanna Mormont, a fierce young noble from Game of Thrones. She has also voiced the titular character in Netflix’s animated series Hilda and played Mildred Hubble in the first three seasons of the CBBC series The Worst Witch.
The Last of Us is a Sony PlayStation series of video games developed by Naughty Dog which was released on the PS3 and PS4. Set in the post-apocalypse, it follows the unlikely duo of Joel and Ellie as they travel across the USA and avoid terrifying infected monsters and rival human colonies at odds with one another in a wasteland that is slowly being reclaimed by nature.
Joel is a grizzled survivor who is tormented by his past failures as a father. He's tasked with smuggling a teenage girl out of an oppressive quarantine zone and across what once was the United States to a faction called the Fireflies.
His ward, Ellie, is a 14-year-old girl who is immune to the mutated strain of the cordyceps fungus at the root of the pandemic and represents perhaps the last hope for a cure. During the game, the two grow closer and closer, developing a close bond out of what was supposed to be just a simple job.
The TV adaptation of The Last of Us is a co-production between HBO, Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint and Naughty Dog. The show is written by Neil Druckmann (the game’s director) and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, and the pilot episode will be directed by Russian filmmaker Kantemir Balagov.
The Last of Us will be available on HBO and HBO Max.
