10 The Last Of Us Actors Who Previously Appeared In A Different HBO Show

From Game of Thrones’ Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey to The White Lotus’ Murray Bartlett, pretty much every major actor from The Last of Us had worked with HBO before. Once an actor is in the HBO family, the network tends to keep bringing them back. The Leftovers’ Carrie Coon was cast in The Gilded Age. The Wire’s Robert Wisdom was cast in Barry. Sharp Objects’ Sydney Sweeney was brought back for Euphoria and The White Lotus. Danny McBride has created and starred in Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals, and The Righteous Gemstones. HBO is very loyal to its actors.

For just about every key role in The Last of Us, HBO’s casting team brought back someone they’d worked with before. Both lead characters, Joel and Ellie, were played by Game of Thrones alums. Before playing Bill in The Last of Us’ most touching episode – season 1, episode 3, “Long, Long Time” – Nick Offerman had made guest appearances on HBO shows ranging from Arliss to Deadwood to Curb Your Enthusiasm. The show brought back iconic voice actors from the games, like Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, and Jeffrey Pierce, but it also has plenty of familiar faces for long-time HBO viewers.

10 Pedro Pascal

Oberyn Martell, Game of Thrones

Pedro Pascal plays the lead role of Joel Miller in HBO’s The Last of Us. In the game, Joel is a hardened killer who’s capable of unspeakable brutality. This works well for the main playable character in an action-adventure video game, but it wouldn’t make him a very sympathetic lead in a TV show. So, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann made the TV version of Joel much softer and more sensitive. He’s worried he won’t be able to keep Ellie safe, and it’s giving him regular panic attacks.

Pascal was a perfect casting choice to play this version of Joel, because he projects Joel’s badassness, but also brings a real emotionality and vulnerability to the role. After nearly two decades of playing small parts, Pascal began the path to superstardom with his breakout role as Oberyn Martell, “The Red Viper of Dorne,” in Game of Thrones season 4. Rather than using guns and shivs like Joel, Oberyn’s weapon of choice is poison, hence his nickname.

9 Bella Ramsey

Lyanna Mormont, Game of Thrones

Bella Ramsey co-stars with Pascal as Ellie, the immune girl that Joel takes to the Fireflies in the hope of developing a cure for the Cordyceps infection. Ramsey plays Ellie totally differently than her original voice actor, Ashley Johnson, with more of an acid-tongued wit and a morbid curiosity about violence. But Ramsey captures the spirit of Ellie just as effectively as Johnson did. In both the game and the show, Ellie is a symbol of hope and childhood innocence in this bleak, dystopian world.

Much like Pascal, Ramsey also appeared on Game of Thrones before landing their Last of Us role. Ramsey played Lyanna Mormont, the head of House Mormont. Despite being just 10 years old, Lyanna is a ruthless and tyrannical ruler. Like Ellie, Lyanna might be much younger than her peers, but she makes her opinions known.

8 Gabriel Luna

Miguel Gilb, True Detective

Gabriel Luna plays Joel’s younger brother Tommy in HBO’s The Last of Us. He didn’t have a huge role in season 1; he appeared in the opening prologue and reappeared in the Jackson-set scenes of episode 6, “Kin.” But The Last of Us season 1’s ending, in which Joel and Ellie moved back to Jackson, set up Tommy for a much larger role in season 2. Tommy’s uncle-niece relationship with Ellie is a major factor in The Last of Us Part II, and it’ll be great to see Luna play those scenes with Ramsey.

Before appearing in The Last of Us, Luna had a three-episode arc in True Detective season 2. Luna played Miguel Gilb, a former colleague of Taylor Kitsch’s character, Officer Paul Woodrugh. While season 2 was arguably True Detective’s weakest season, Luna gave a memorable performance.

7 Nico Parker

Ellie, The Third Day

Nico Parker only appeared in the first episode of The Last of Us, “When You’re Lost in the Darkness,” but she was the focal point of the opening prologue and her character loomed large over the rest of the season. Parker plays Joel’s daughter Sarah, who dies tragically in his arms on outbreak day. Whereas the game opens in the middle of the night, the TV series goes through Sarah’s entire day – eating breakfast, going to school, buying Joel’s birthday present, etc. – so the audience can get to know her better.

This made Sarah’s untimely passing even more devastating than it is in the game. Parker nailed the pain and fear of the death scene just as effectively as her video game counterpart, Hana Hayes. Prior to her work in The Last of Us, Parker had played a character coincidentally named Ellie in the HBO miniseries The Third Day.

6 Anna Torv

Virginia Grey, The Pacific

Anna Torv appears in the early episodes of The Last of Us season 1 as Tess, Joel’s partner-in-crime in the Boston quarantine zone. While it takes Joel a long time to warm up to Ellie, Tess is kind and maternal to Ellie from the outset. The TV show makes Joel and Tess’ relationship less ambiguous than the game. In the game, the nature of their relationship is unclear, but in the TV show, it’s overtly romantic – and Torv and Pascal nailed the on-screen chemistry of an emotionally distant couple.

Torv’s best-known TV role before The Last of Us was psychology professor and serial killer profiler Wendy Carr in the Netflix crime thriller series Mindhunter. But before that, she had a small but important role in HBO’s World War II miniseries The Pacific. She played real-life radio and television star Virginia Grey.

5 Murray Bartlett

Armond, The White Lotus

In episode 3, “Long, Long Time,” The Last of Us deviated from Joel and Ellie’s journey to tell the heartbreaking post-apocalyptic love story of Bill and Frank. In the game, Bill mentions that he had a partner named Frank, but it never shows them together or features Frank as a character on-screen beyond showing his corpse. The TV show subverted that storyline and instead presented Bill and Frank enjoying a lifelong romance.

Murray Bartlett gave a really moving performance as Frank. Bartlett had previously bowled over HBO viewers with his brilliant performance as Armond, a hotel manager struggling to keep it together, in the first season of The White Lotus. According to HBO’s official Last of Us podcast, Mazin and Druckmann cast Bartlett as Frank before they had a chance to see his work in The White Lotus.

4 Melanie Lynskey

Michelle Pierson, Togetherness

In the video game, it’s unclear who’s chasing Sam and Henry. But the TV show introduced a whole new character to give some backstory to that feud. Melanie Lynskey first appeared in episode 4, “Please Hold to My Hand,” as Kathleen, the tyrannical resistance leader who overthrew FEDRA in Kansas City. Kathleen wants revenge against Henry for giving away information that led to her brother’s death. Her arc is in keeping with The Last of Us’ theme of the dark side of love.

Lynskey has played a bunch of iconic TV roles throughout her storied career, from Rose in Two and a Half Men to Shauna in Yellowjackets. She previously worked with HBO when she played Michelle Pierson in the wonderful but short-lived dramedy series Togetherness. Michelle is somewhat frustrated with her life as a mother and wife, but she’s not a ruthless killer like Kathleen.

3 Rutina Wesley

Tara Thornton, True Blood

Rutina Wesley first appeared in episode 6, “Kin,” as Tommy’s wife and the leader of the Jackson community, Maria. Much like Tommy, Maria is being set up for a much bigger role in season 2. In The Last of Us Part II, Maria has embraced Joel as her brother-in-law and Ellie as her niece. It seems that a strong focus on family is what brought Tommy and Maria together in the first place. Unlike in the game, Maria is pregnant in the TV series, setting up a more heartbreaking story for Tommy in season 2.

Wesley had previously worked with HBO when she played Tara Thornton in the main cast of the vampire-infested drama True Blood. Tara is a much more troubled character than Maria. Whereas Maria was inspired by her benevolent father to lead a fair and peaceful society, Tara was raised by abusive alcoholics.

2 Scott Shepherd

Harris James, True Detective

Scott Shepherd plays by far the most despicable character in The Last of Us saga (and that’s saying a lot). Initially, David seems like a kind, trustworthy, mild-mannered man who just wants to make sure the people under his care are safe and well-fed. However, as Ellie gets to know him better, it becomes clear that he’s much more sinister than that. He’s a murderer, a cannibal, and a pedophile. Shepherd plays David’s evil perfectly; he’s just as hateable in the TV show as in the game.

In True Detective season 3, Shepherd played a much less abhorrent character named Harris James. Harris is a police officer who went missing, which forms the backbone of one of the season’s biggest mysteries. He later works as a security guard at Hoyt Foods. Suffice to say, he’s not as awful as David.

1 Storm Reid

Gia Bennett, Euphoria

Storm Reid only appeared in one episode of The Last of Us, but much like Bartlett, she took over as a series lead in that one episode. Episode 7, “Left Behind,” adapted from the DLC of the same name, fills in the backstory of how Ellie got bitten. While she was still at the Boston Q.Z., Ellie and her best friend Riley – played by Reid – snuck out to explore an abandoned mall, where they enjoyed a carousel, a photo booth, an arcade, and fell in love. But when a clicker emerged, the greatest night of Ellie’s life became the worst.

Reid and Ramsey played the romantic tension beautifully, which made the tragic end to their love story even more heartbreaking. Before playing Riley in The Last of Us, Reid was best known for playing Rue Bennett’s younger sister Gia in Euphoria. Whereas Riley is confident, outspoken, and tough, Gia is just a vulnerable kid who’s terrified by all the yelling and tension in her house, and Reid plays both roles just as authentically.