HBO’s hotly-anticipated TV series adaptation of The Last of Us has cast Mindhunter star Anna Torv as Tess. First released in 2013, the two games in the series have been massive hits for Naughty Dog and Sony Computer Entertainment, with exclusive rights granted to Sony Playstation consoles. The original game was remastered and re-released in 2014, with The Last of Us Part II arriving to tremendous acclaim in 2020 despite a delayed release.
As a third-person, action-adventure survival horror game, The Last of Us took the concept of a post-apocalyptic world plagued by flesh-eating zombie-like creatures to the next level. After 60% of the global human population is killed off by a mutated strain of the Cordyceps fungus, smuggler Joel finds himself forced to accompany 14-year-old Ellie from Boston across the United States to find anti-government militia, the Fireflies. Ellie has proven herself immune to the Cordyceps virus, a first for mankind, and is therefore a vital link to potentially finding a cure to the sickness that has killed, altered, and devasted society. The success of the first game prompted efforts to develop a film adaptation, but this fell apart after the game’s writer, Neil Druckman disagreed with the studio over the film’s scale.
By late 2020, HBO revealed they were working on developing a TV adaptation of The Last of Us. The series is now currently filming, and as Deadline reports, the latest casting decision is to bring on Anna Torv as Joel’s fellow smuggler, Tess. The character is seen in the early stages of the first game and is responsible for ensuring that Joel commits to taking Ellie to a Firefly base located across the country. Ruthless and strong-willed, Tess made for an ideal partner to Joel during his black-market days.
At present, the cast of The Last of Us includes Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) as Joel and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) as Ellie. Gabriel Luna (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) will play Joel’s brother Tommy, with Nico Parker taking on the prologue role of Joel’s 12-year-old daughter Sarah and Merle Dandridge as Firefly leader Marlene. Given the harsh nature of The Last of Us in terms of the survival rate of its characters, the series will likely be comparable in several respects to AMC’s long-running hit, The Walking Dead. However, the real key to the success of The Last of Us will be its focus on the relationship between Joel and Ellie, the likes of which has been able to strike an emotional chord with gamers for years.
Though Tess isn’t in The Last of Us game for long, her role in the story of Joel and Ellie can greatly be extended in the TV series. It will be interesting to see if HBO digs a little deeper into the relationship between Joel and Tess, particularly their earlier days spent together smuggling and dealing with all sorts of semi-lucrative black market trades. Regardless of how the relationship is handled, however, The Last of Us has been demanding a live-action spinoff from the moment it was delivered to the public as a game. Whether or not HBO finds success with the IP is hard to say right now, but the odds seem to be in its favor in regards to the cast.
Source: Deadline