The filming of ‘The Last of Us’ is approaching, which is scheduled to begin in July and would last until June 2022, and the cast is filling up. Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey and Gabriel Luna have just been joined by an actress who knows the universe of original video games very well.
Merle Dandridge, the actress who has voiced Marlene in both games, will play the same character in the HBO adaptation, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Dandridge has a lot of experience as a voice actress in video games like ‘Half-Life 2’ or ‘Uncharted 4’, but we have also seen her in series like ‘Sons of Anarchy’ or more recently in ‘The Flight Attendant’.
The Playstation video game imagines a dystopian future in which the US is ravaged by a virus that turns those infected into monsters. However, the plot is centered on Joel (Pascal) and Ellie (Ramsey), a man trying to protect a girl in the dehumanized jungle that the country has become. As in ‘The Walking Dead’, here the villains are not the zombies but the people.
In ‘The Last of Us’ she plays Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, a revolutionary militia group fighting against the totalitarian government.. She is related to Ellie, whose mother she was friends with, and Tommy (Luna), a former member of the Fireflies. But his goal of developing a cure for the virus at all costs will create tension with Joel (Pascal) and the rest.
Prestigious directors
Written by Craig Mazin (‘Chernobyl’), ‘The Last of Us’ will feature a roster of directors emerging from recent editions of the world’s best film festivals. The pilot will be run by Kantemir Balagov, winner of the 2019 Cannes A Certain Look Award for ‘A Great Woman’. We recently learned that Jasmila Zbanic and Ali Abbasi will also direct episodes.
Zbanic is the director of the fantastic ‘Quo vadis, Aida?’, Nominated at the last Oscars for Best Foreign Film and that is now in Spanish cinemas. Ali Abbasi is the director of the unforgettable ‘Border’, winner of the aforementioned award at Cannes in 2018.
Additionally, video game creator Neil Druckmann also serves as an executive producer and oversees the adaptation. ‘The Last of Us’ is in good hands.
