If you’re interested in “The Last of Us” series at all and have been on the internet within the past few months–you’ve definitely seen the castings for the upcoming characters that will be featured in season two of the HBO television adaptation. I do believe that some of the characters could have been casted significantly better.
Personally, I found the first season of the show to be lacking just slightly. I wish they’d slowed the pacing of the series down just a little as some of the relationships in the series felt rushed through. Walking into it, I’d also hoped they’d gone into a little more detail on the disease itself; but I can understand why they didn’t. On a positive note, I love how the tone was established within the first episode of the show and along with this, a lot of things were spot-on in comparison to the games. I’m sure a lot of people who played the games could appreciate this.
The actors who were casted for Sarah and Joel (Nico Parker and Pedro Pascal) were phenomenal. While considering how well these characters were casted, I feel like Ellie’s character should’ve been played by someone else. Bella Ramsey is a great actor and played extremely well as a character–it just didn’t feel like Ellie. With season two around the corner, I’m interested to see how they make Ramsey look any older in resemblance to “The Last of Us II”–where Ellie is about five years older and looks significantly different coming up on the starting events of the game.
Turning to the castings for the characters that will have their first appearances in season two, a lot more could’ve been taken into consideration. As for Abby, one of the main characters in the second game, Kaitlyn Dever was cast to play her. Anyone that has played the second game could probably understand what I mean when I say Abby should be played by someone else. One of Abby’s crucial points in her character development was that she was strong and muscular. “Built like an ox,” as described in the game. Up until the last segment of the second game, she’s seen to be very sturdy and just overall very unassailable. However, Dever has the exact opposite physique. She’s petite and doesn’t seem to be very muscular. The strange thing is that Dever was fan-casted by tons of people to originally be playing Ellie, which I can’t deny nor concur would be a better fit.
Taking a look at other characters like Dina–It’s apparent they had the same problem. Although the choice wasn’t as poor as Abby’s casting, I think it could’ve also been improved. In “The Last of Us II,” Dina is heavily implied to be Jewish–which is something a lot of people probably missed. Isabela Merced is beautiful and surely a great actor, but I’m not sure she’s the right pick to play as Dina. On the other hand, I’m pretty happy with the casting for Jesse’s character, Young Mazino. He did an amazing job in the Netflix series “Beef” and I’m eager to see him in the second season of “The Last of Us.” They also look very similar in comparison to the other actors and their characters.
I understand that when casting comes into the picture, availability and acting ability are things that need to be considered, but I truly do feel like there could’ve been improvements in some cases. Not just in casting alone, either. Nonetheless, I am excited to see how HBO continues to progress their adaptation of the game.
