Emmy winner John Goodman (The Conners)Ian Alexander and Laura Bailey (The Legend of Vox Machina) have joined the cast of HBO season 3 The last of us.
The castings are important, as Alexander and Bailey have previously voiced characters from The Last of Us: Part II video game, Alexander as Lev and Bailey as Abby. Kyriana Kratter plays Lev in the live-action series and Abby is played by Kaitlyn Dever.
In HBO The last of us, Goodman plays Joey and Alexander plays Paco, a friendly duo who call themselves “Heroes of the Highway.” Bailey plays Elizabeth, one of the leaders of the religious sect known as the Seraphites.
HBO had previously pulled actors from video games for the live-action series, casting Merle Dandridge and Jeffrey Wright, both of whom reprized live-action versions of the characters they voiced in the games – Dandridge as Marlene, leader of the Fireflies resistance movement, and Wright as Isaac Dixon, leader of the WLF militia in Seattle. Additionally, Ashley Johnson, who played Ellie’s mother in the season 1 finale, voiced Ellie in the video games.
Co-created by the game’s Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, The last of us, based on the award-winning Naughty Dog video game, takes place 20 years after the destruction of modern civilization. The story began with Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened survivor, hired to break 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey) out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What begins as a small job soon becomes a brutal and harrowing journey as they both must cross the United States and depend on each other to survive.
Season 2 picked up five years after the events of the first season. No plot details for Season 3 have been revealed, but it is expected to focus on Abby Anderson’s (Dever) arc, in which the Seraphites play a major role.
Pascal’s character Joel was killed off in the Season 2 finale, so he was unable to physically appear in Season 3, but it’s possible he could appear in flashbacks. At this stage, his return is uncertain.
Goodman, Alexander and Bailey join several other new cast members previously announced for Season 3, including Li Jun Li as Miriam, a Seraphite, Peter Sarsgaard as Amon, one of the leaders of the Seraphites, a new character who is not in the video games. This season, Jason Ritter as Hanley, a WLF soldier, Patrick Wilson as Jerry, Abby’s father (Dever), as well as Michelle Mao, Clea DuVall and Jorge Lendeborg as Manny, also reprise the role of Danny Ramirez, who was unable to return due to scheduling reasons.
Season 3 could indeed be the last of the HBO series. In an interview with Deadline after HBO’s 21 Emmy wins earlier this month, Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, did not confirm that the upcoming season was the last, but said he thought “Mazin planned it as the last season.”
Mazin, who served as executive producer/co-showrunner alongside Neil Druckmann in seasons 1 and 2, is the series’ sole showrunner for season 3. It is scheduled to premiere in 2027.
Katie Campione contributed to this report.
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