The Last of Us Welcomes 4 More to HBO Series Adaptation Cast

So the last time we checked in with how things were going with Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin‘s upcoming Pedro Pascal (Joel) & Bella Ramsey (Elie)-starring HBO series adaptation of The Last of Us, it was last month, and HBO & HBO Max Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys was narrowing the release window to “closer to early 2023” while also predicting that it would one of the shows that folks will be talking about come Emmy Awards season time. Thanks to IGN’s exclusive reporting, we’re learning who else will be helping to make that happen, with Lamar Johnson & Keivonn Woodard joining the cast and Graham Greene & Elaine Miles set to guest star as characters original to the series (and not the video game). Johnson’s Henry and Woodard’s Sam are brothers in Kansas City hiding from a revolutionary movement & seeking vengeance. Greene’s Marlon and Miles’ Florence are a married couple surviving alone in the wilderness of post-apocalyptic Wyoming.

Based on the critically acclaimed video game 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 to the Fireflies, a cure-searching organization. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both traverse across the U.S. & depend on each other for survival. Joining Pascal and Ramsey are Gabriel Luna (Tommy, Joel’s younger brother), Nico Parker (Sarah), Merle Dandridge (resistance leader Marlene), Jeffrey Pierce (Perry), Anna Torv (Tess), Nick Offerman (Bill), Murray Bartlett (Frank), and Storm Reid (Riley Abel). In addition, video game franchise voice actors Ashley Johnson & Troy Baker (Ellie & Joel in The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II video games) will also be appearing in the series.

Ramsey’s Ellie is a 14-year-old who has never known anything but a ravaged planet, struggling 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. Luna’s Tommy is Joel’s younger brother- a formal soldier who still holds on to his sense of idealism and hope for a better world. Dandridge’s Marlene is the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime, while Parker has been tapped for the role of Joel’s daughter, Sarah.

Pierce is set to recur as Perry, a rebel in a quarantine zone. Bartlett has been cast as Frank and Offerman as Bill, two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town. Torv’s Tess is a smuggler and hardened survivor in a post-pandemic world who (at least in the video game) works with Joel to survive and smuggle weapons in & out of Boston, and accompanies Joel on the mission to smuggle Ellie to the Fireflies. Reid’s Abel is an orphaned girl growing up in a post-apocalyptic Boston (in the video game DLC “The Last of Us: Left Behind,” the Yaani Kang-voiced Riley accompanies her best friend Ellie before Joel enters the scene

Written by Mazin and Druckmann with Kantemir Balagov (Beanpole, Closeness) directing the pilot, the series is set to be executive produced by Carolyn Strauss (Chernobyl, Game of Thrones), Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, PlayStation Productions’ Asad Qizilbash & Carter Swan, Mazin, and Druckmann. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, with PlayStation Productions, Word Games, and Naughty Dog producing. Academy Award nominee Jasmila Žbanić (Quo vadis, Aida) and Ali Abbasi (Border) join pilot-director Balagov in the director’s chair.