Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, the architects behind HBO's ratings and awards hit The Last of Us, know they sometimes frustrate the more purist fans when it comes to casting. "We value performance over anything else," Druckmann tells Entertainment Weekly as part of an exclusive season 2 interview. "We need someone to really capture the essence of those characters.... We don't value as much, 'Do they look exactly like the character with their eyebrows or their nose or their body?' Whatever it is. It's not nowhere on the priority list, but it's below a bunch of other things that we consider."
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When it came to casting Abby, a central new character to the events to come, that's why Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart) didn't need to hit the gym to look like the muscled version of the character in the video games. Fans will no doubt have questions about that choice. So, in an attempt to get ahead of the noise, the showrunners offer their thoughts on the subject.
“We would've struggled to find someone as good as Kaitlyn to play this role,” Druckmann explains. “In the game, you have to play both characters [Ellie and Abby] and we need them to play differently. We needed Ellie to feel smaller and kind of maneuver around, and Abby was meant to play more like Joel in that she's almost like a brute in the way she can physically manhandle certain things. That doesn't play as big of a role in this version of the story because there's not as much violent action moment to moment. It's more about the drama. I'm not saying there's no action here. It's just, again, different priorities and how you approach it.”
“I personally think that there is an amazing opportunity here to delve into someone who is perhaps physically more vulnerable than the Abby in the game, but whose spirit is stronger,” Mazin adds. “And then the question is, ‘Where does her formidable nature come from and how does it manifest?’ That's something that will be explored now and later.”
The Last of Us season 2 picks up five years after the events of season 1. Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are now settled in the same Jackson, Wyo., commune where Joel's brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and sister-in-law Maria (Rutina Wesley) reside. It's during a time of relative peace when Abby, a skilled soldier on the hunt to avenge those she loves, arrives on the scene with a crew comprised of Owen (Spencer Lord), Mel (Ariela Barer), Nora (Tati Gabrielle), and Manny (Danny Ramirez).
"Kaitlyn has the spirit of the game in her," Druckmann says. "What I always loved about the idea was that you are going to continually be challenged as you were in season 1. When you try to pick a hero, it's tough because we're human beings, we're not heroes. For every heroic act, there's someone who suffers on the other side who may see you reasonably as a villain. When you look at Kaitlyn, there's just something in her eyes where, even no matter what she's experiencing, you connect. It was important that we found somebody that we could connect to the way we connect to Bella."
Ramsey already went through a similar situation when certain fans commented on whether their casting would still be appropriate given the time jump between seasons 1 and 2. Similar with Dever now, Druckmann and Mazin stood by Ramsey then. "The only way we would ever, ever consider re-casting Bella is if she said, 'I don't want to work with you guys anymore,'" Druckmann said in March 2023. "And even then, we're not sure we would grant her that."
