Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for The Last of Us
With the debut season now at a close, Craig Mazin reveals that The Last of Us season 2 won’t recast Ellie actor Bella Ramsey for the story’s time jump. The first season of the HBO show largely adapted the events of the original game, following Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie as they travelled across a post-apocalyptic America to reach a group of survivors who could use the latter’s immunity to the Cordyceps infection as an antidote. Scoring critical acclaim and massive viewership, The Last of Us was quickly renewed for season 2.
Ahead of the season finale’s premiere, Screen Rant attended a press conference with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann to discuss HBO’s The Last of Us. While exploring season 2 adapting the events of the second game, which featured a five-year time jump, the creative duo assured that Ellie actor Bella Ramsey wouldn’t be replaced for the in-development season, explaining her importance for the key character moving forward. See what Mazin and Druckmann shared below:
Craig Mazin: So, one of the things about the casting process that’s tough is that we invite people to join us on this process, and we know everything, and nobody else knows anything, except what they know, which is the game. But we know what we’re going to do in terms of costume and makeup and hair, but more importantly, we also know the spirit and soul of the actor. It’s tough as a kind of a parent of an actor, because you become kind of a surrogate father on set, especially to someone who, when she joined us, was 17. She’s 19 now which, by the way, is the age of Ellie in The Last of Us Part II. People were like, “She doesn’t look like the character,” and I’m like, “It doesn’t matter, just watch what happens. Just watch.” And now they know, and I think there is still this constant drumbeat of anxiety. All I can say to people is I have so much anxiety myself about doing a good job on this. I am also very anxious, if you’re anxious about something, I’m probably anxious about it, which means we’re talking about it and thinking about it. We will present things, but it will be different, it will be different, just as this season was different. Sometimes it will be different radically, and sometimes it will be barely different at all. But it’s going to be different, and it will be its own thing. It won’t be exactly like the game, it will be the show that Neil and I want to make. We are making it with Bella.
Neil Druckmann: I’ll add to that, when we made the game, I felt we were incredibly lucky, it was like lightning in a 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. We are extremely lucky to have Bella in 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, we’re not sure we would grant her that, we might still force her to come back. [Laughs]
TLOU Season 2 Can Avoid A House of the Dragon Problem
Mazin and Druckmann have previously indicated that The Last of Us season 2 would adapt the events of the 2020 sequel game, which was set five years after the events of its predecessor. As such, speculation has swirled as to whether the next chapter of the HBO series would look to replace Ramsey for the story’s time jump, or if they would keep the young star in the role she’s already garnered a considerable amount of acclaim for.
By electing to keep Ramsey as Ellie for The Last of Us season 2, the creative team behind the HBO show have already avoided the major narrative hurdle presented by fellow network show House of the Dragon. The Game of Thrones prequel memorably jumped its story ahead by a decade halfway through, necessitating a change in a few of its key characters, namely Rhaenyra Targaryen, passed on from Milly Alcock to Emma D’Arcy, and Alicent Hightower, played first by Emily Carey and later by Olivia Cooke.
Though the various House of the Dragon actors scored positive reviews for their performances, the time jump as a whole was met with mixed reviews. Therefore, with Mazin and Druckmann assuring that The Last of Us season 2 will keep original Ellie actor Bella Ramsey for the next chapter of the story rather than recasting, those who have fallen in love with her performance can take delight in knowing she will be back in the future, and as such avoid any hurdles in finding someone as skilled as Ramsey.
