Work on the second season of HBO’s “The Last of Us” is on hold due to the writer’s strike and is expected to resume as soon as the industrial action is over.
For now, the show is still aiming to begin production early next year in Vancouver, which will stand in for a post-apocalyptic Seattle in ruins. The series will also introduce key characters from the second game with casting for characters such as Abby, Dina, Lev, Jesse, Yara and Manny no doubt being closely watched by fans.
As the new season will take place a few years after the events of the first, there’s been plenty of speculation we may have already glimpsed at least two of those characters on the show during the first season.
Now, showrunner Craig Mazin has addressed that talk. Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, he shoots down the speculation that we glimpsed Abby in the final episode during the hospital shootout sequence:
“I can confirm that she was not [in the season 1 finale]. That was just one of the Fireflies that happened to have a ponytail. Other people have ponytails, so that was not Abby.”
Whereas Mazin was quite definitive there about Abby, he played it coyer with the rumoured Dina cameo glimpsed in the sixth episode with the showrunner saying on the official podcast a few months ago:
“It’s a little, I mean, it’s ambiguous. Somebody’s staring at Ellie. I wonder who that could be, theoretically or not. We’ll find out maybe one day… That doesn’t mean that that’s Dina, but it doesn’t mean it’s not.”
On the more recent podcast, Mazin also addressed talk about alternate Joel casting. He shot down talk that Mahershala Ali was up for the role but does confirm he did talk with Matthew McConaughey at one point:
“I did talk to Matthew. I can’t say that it was like a series of conversations. It was more of a, ‘Hey, here’s something to talk about.’ Pedro was on our list from the start. We were told he was unavailable, and then as we were floundering about a little bit, I got a call from his agent who said, ‘You know, he actually might be available.’
Matthew McConaughey is an amazing actor. I’m sure it would have been great but it would have been different, and I like the one that we made, so what can I say, I think it worked out.”
For the full episode, which also goes into full-blown spoilers for the second season,click here.
