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The Last of Us on HBO: these were the other candidates to play Ellie
Series showrunner Craig Mazin explains how the casting process went and what other names they considered before Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.
A few days before the premiere of The Last of Us on HBO, the creators of the series have revealed why they ended up opting for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as the new faces of Joel and Ellie. A very interesting story because both cases have very little to do with each other. Casting Pedro Pascal was relatively easy and it took the team "no effort" to imagine the actor as Joel, but in the case of Ellie, the network considered more than 100 actresses before landing on Ramsey for the part.
Craig Mazin, the showrunner of the series, tells that when he sent a first draft of the script to Pedro Pascal, the actor was so excited that Mazin himself began to fear that the thing would not work precisely for that reason, in case his emotions overwhelmed him. However, all the producers were delighted with the idea of having Oberyn Martell, a DEA agent and the Mandalorian as the protagonist. “We talked about the fact that he was in The Mandalorian. And you can do the math like: Mandalorian = Joel; Baby Yoda = … but then you realize, actually, no. It’s not the same,” explained Mazin to The Hollywood Reporter.
However, with Bella Ramsey there were many more doubts and not only from the team, but also from her.”I seriously considered that maybe I don’t want to be famous so I’m not going to do this show because it’s going propel me to a place I don’t want to go to in terms of being seen and being known", reveals the actress herself on the pages of the magazine. For her part, the creators of the series had many other names on the table before hers. The first and the ones that stood out the most were those of Maisie Williams (Arya in Game of Thrones) and Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), the last of which even did a table read. Fortunately or unfortunately, the production of the series was extended through covid, and due to the aging of both, the casting had to be restarted.
They were not the only candidates. Later the names of Sophia Lillis (It, Gretel & Hansel), Elsie K. Fisher (Eight Grade, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Cailee Spaeny (Bad Times at the Royale) and even Kiernan Shipka (The chilling adventures of Sabrina). But when Mazin and Druckmann saw the recording of Ramsey's audition, they fell in love with her portrayal. "Bella felt so real," the director explains. "It was like Ellie realized in live action. It didn’t feel like watching an actor." The showrunner asked her co-stars on Game of Thrones, who assured him that she was "all joy on set" and Bella went from audition to signing in less than a month.
Will we fall in love with Pascal and Ramsay these next few months?We’ll find out really soon, because The Last of Us premieres on HBO next Monday, January 16.
Source | The Hollywood Reporter