The Last Of Us isn't recasting Ellie for season 2, series creators confirm

The Last of Us TV series from HBO isn’t recasting Ellie for season two, the series creators have confirmed.

This week saw the final episode of the HBO adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, which ended the series with a nearly perfect score. It’s fair to say that the cast of this series has knocked it out of the park, in particular Pedro Pascal (Joel) and Bella Ramsey (Ellie).

Video game adaptations can be very tricky to work with lofted expectations from the community. Translating a video game to a movie or TV series can garner any number of pitfalls.

Will it be a faithful adaptation and most importantly, would it do the video game series we hold so dear, the justice it deserves? Another tricky pitfall to navigate is casting choice. Whether we believe an actor or actress is the correct choice is subjective to the individual. So it certainly isn't going to please everyone.

However, when it comes to The Last of Us TV series, I think that few can argue that Pedro and Bella haven't knocked it out of the park. Granted, I was unsure to begin with, before the series aired.

After all, for nearly a decade, we’re very used to Ellie and Joel played by Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, in Naughty Dog’s video game series. So for me at least, it had taken an episode and a bit to get used to Pedro and Bella’s portrayals of our beloved characters.

Now, I not only believe that both Pedro and Bella have captured the essence of the characters to near perfection, but they’ve also brought their own charms to the live-action versions.

Still, that is just my humble opinion and not everyone is happy with the casting of The Last of Us from HBO. As reported by IGN, co-executive producers Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, addressed concerns that Ellie could be recast in season two.

“When we made the game, I felt we were incredibly lucky,” Druckmann said during a season finale press conference. “It was like lightning in the bottle that we found Ashley Johnson. I can't imagine that version of Ellie being anybody else. And then somehow we got lightning in the bottle again with Bella.

The Naughty Dog chief continued: “We are extremely lucky to have Bella and the stuff you saw throughout this entire season. The only way we would ever, ever consider recasting Bella is if she said, 'I don't want to work with you guys anymore.' Even then, I'm not sure we would grant her that. We might still force her to come back to Season two.”

Mazin agreed with Druckmann and also highlighted the fact that Bella Ramsey being 19 years old, is now the same age as Ellie in The Last of Us: Part II.

At the time of writing, we do not know when season two of The Last of Us will arrive. Thankfully, we do know that it has been renewed for a second season. The Last of Us is available on HBO Max in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK.