Merle Dandridge, who voiced Marlene in The Last of Us video games, will reprise the role in HBO’s upcoming series adaptation!
Taking place twenty years after modern civilisation has been destroyed, the series will follow Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened survivor, who is hired to smuggle Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
In the game, Marlene was the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement fighting against an oppressive military regime. She was friends with Ellie’s mother before society crumbled as a result of a deadly outbreak, and was also once close with Joel’s brother, Tommy, who will be played by Gabriel Luna in the series.
Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) is developing The Last of Us for HBO and is writing and executive producing the series alongside Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann. Directors include Jasmila Žbanić, Ali Abbasi, and Kantemir Balagov, the latter of whom will helm the pilot.
Words: Samantha McLaren (@themeatispeople)
