Jeffrey Pierce (“Bosch,” “Castle Rock”), Con O’Neil (“Chernobyl,” “The Batman”) and Murray Bartlett (“Looking,” “The White Lotus”) have all joined the cast of “The Last of Us” TV series currently in production for HBO.
The story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed by a fungal pandemic. Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone.
What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
Pierce voiced the key role of Joel’s brother Tommy in the games. That role is being played in the series by Gabriel Luna, and so Pierce will recur as a rebel in the quarantine zone named Perry.
O’Neill and Bartlett are Bill and Frank respectively, two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town. Bill is a key character in the first game, played there by “Deadwood” alum W. Earl Brown.
He’s a hardened survivor who rigs explosive traps for the Clickers. It’s also strongly implied he and Frank are life partners, but Frank is only briefly seen in the game and has no dialogue. This casting suggests those roles will be at least slightly expanded.
Nico Parker and Merle Dandridge also star in the series which hails from “Chernobyl” creator Craig Mazin and game director Neil Druckmann.
Source: Deadline
