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The Last of Us Season 2 Star Resuming Filming, Discusses First Day

Isabela Merced heads back to resume work on Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann's Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsey -starring The Last of Us Season 2.

On Monday night, Isabela Merced (Dina) offered an update on how things were going with the early stages of work on the second season of Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann's Pedro Pascal (Joel) & Bella Ramsey (Bella)-starring The Last of Us. During a red-carpet event for her upcoming film Madame Webb, Merced revealed that she finished her first day of filming – while dropping huge praise on Dever and teasing that a friend of hers had also joined the cast (though she can't say who it is, obviously). In addition, Merced dropped the word "genius" when it came to how Mazin was able to find a way to bring "Part 2" of the video game to live-action series life. But Merced wasn't quite done there – adding later that she spent much of that first day with Ramsey, with Mazin directing. After adding how she and Mazin "geek out" and how she taught them how to play Spades, Merced added that she was heading back to Vancouver tomorrow (meaning today) to resume work on the season.

Behind the camera, Mazin and Druckmann will be joined by Peter Hoar (S01E03: "Long, Long Time") are Mark Mylod (HBO's Succession), Nina Lopez-Corrado (HBO's Perry Mason), Stephen Williams (HBO's Watchmen) and Kate Herron (Loki). Now, here's a look at Mercad offering more insights into her work on Season 2 so far:

The Last of Us: Craig Mazin on Season 2 & Beyond

In an interview with Variety from Summer 2023, Mazin discussed how a 2025 debut for the second season was still workable (depending on when the then-ongoing SAG-AFTRA & WGA strikes would end), confirmed that Season 3 will happen (as long as the viewers keep watching), and addressed the possibility of familiar faces returning in flashbacks (and why they have no plans to mess with that "beautiful" episode).

"The Last of Us" Could Still Make Its 2025 Delivery Date – For Now: "We had a little more flexibility, I think, than normally just because we had to wait a little bit longer any way to line up production with the weather. A lot of what we do is outside, and so we had a schedule that weirdly hasn't been immediately impacted. But we're getting pretty close; we can't keep our original start dates forever, obviously. If these strikes go much longer, we inevitably will have to push, and that hurts us, and it hurts the audience, and it hurts HBO. We all, everybody wants to get back to work; I think everybody that's actually doing the work, including the network people who are with us on the ground, I think everybody just wants to get this solved. So fingers crossed."

"The Last of Us" Season 3 Will Happen As Long As Viewers Keep Watching: "It's going to be more than one season. There's more story, so this show will not end with Season 2 unless people don't watch it, and we'll get canceled. Barring that, we will be doing some things exactly the way they were in the game. We're going to do other things that are in the game, and we're gonna do some things that are in the game, but we're gonna do them differently in our own method. No matter if you have played the game or not. You will be surprised as the season unfolds. We have some interesting twists and turns."

Could Melanie Lynskey, Storm Reid & Others Return via Flashbacks? "There's always a chance for everything. With us, you never know, and we obviously don't confine ourselves by timelines. People who are dead sometimes reappear, and sometimes we meet people that we didn't even know, and then we find out that they are somebody."

Mazin on Why There Won't Be Another Bill (Nick Offerman) & Frank (Murray Bartlett) Episode: "What you won't see is, for instance, another very special episode with Bill and Frank; we aren't going to milk it. When we do something that we think is beautiful, we let it be as it is and find other beautiful things to do."

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