The two stars of HBO’s highly anticipated TV series adaptation of “The Last of Us” game have revealed they’re not that familiar with the source material.
In fact Bella Ramsey, who plays the female lead of Ellie in the show, said she was encouraged not to play the game upon which the first season of the show is heavily based. She tells USA Today:
“After my first audition, they asked me, ‘have you played it?’ And I said ‘nope,’ and they said, ‘keep it that way’. I did watch some of the gameplay on YouTube just to get a sense of it. But 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.”
The actress, best known for her work in “Games of Thrones” and most recently seen in Lena Dunham’s new film “Catherine Called Birdy,” says her co-star shared a moment with her once they’d wrapped production:
“Pedro [Pascal] 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.”
Pascal has previously admitted he also hadn’t played the source material, only briefly watching his nephew play it for a brief time and admitting he found it a “visually impressive” experience and was really taken with his character.
The series, which marks the first television series from PlayStation Productions, will air on HBO Max sometime in 2023. Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett and Nico Parker co-star.
