Posted in: HBO, Preview, streaming, Trailer, TV | Tagged: Bella Ramsey, HBO, hbo max, Pedro Pascal, preview, the last of us

The Last of Us: Ramsey Shares Pascal's Note to Her at Filming Wrap

Published Sat, 08 Oct 2022 14:37:12 -0500

by Ray Flook

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Late last month, HBO understood the assignment. With September 26th being "The Last of Us Day," it just felt right to get an official teaser for Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin's upcoming Pedro Pascal (Joel) & Bella Ramsey (Elie)-starring HBO series adaptation of the blockbuster video game franchise. Now, Ramsey is sharing a personal note that Pascal wrote to her when filming was getting ready to wrap. Spoiler? Pascal still has a way with words…

Speaking with USA Today to promote Amazon's Catherine Called Birdy, Ramsey revealed that she was encouraged not to play the video game before filming began ("I did watch some of the gameplay on YouTube just to get a sense of it") before moving onto her excitement for the HBO series and the words that Pascal had to share on a card. "I'm so excited for it to come out – it was such a big part of my life. I shot for a whole year, which is quite a long time when you've only lived for 19 years," she explained. "Pedro wrote a little card to me at the end, saying, 'How interesting that something so huge and life-changing should happen so early in your life and so late in mine.' I thought it was a really sweet observation, and I just had the best time."

HBO's The Last of Us: What We Know So Far

Set to arrive sometime in 2023 (watch this space), here's a look at the first official teaser trailer for HBO's The Last of Us:

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). Lamar Johnson & Keivonn Woodard have also joined the cast, with Graham Greene & Elaine Miles set to guest star as characters original to the series (and not the video game). 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. 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.

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.