The actors who will portray Henry and Sam in HBO’s upcoming adaptation of Naughty Dog’s critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us have been cast. Lamar Johnson will represent Henry, the older brother, while Keivonn Woodard will portray Sam, the younger sibling. IGN broke the casting news, and they point out that Henry and Sam will be very different from their video game personas. It will be remembered by those who played the post-apocalyptic game that Joel and Ellie met the two survivors in Pittsburgh and joined forces to survive the roving group of hunters that has taken over the city.
The show’s Henry and Sam may be located in Kansas City, where they are described to be “hiding from a revolutionary organisation seeking retribution” in an official character description published by IGN. Originally, Brandon Scott and Nadji Jeter portrayed Henry and Sam, respectively. Graham Greene and Elaine Miles will also appear as Marlon and Florence, in addition to the previously announced cast. Don’t worry if these two characters don’t sound familiar. In this series, two completely new characters will be introduced.
A married couple surviving alone in the Wyoming wilderness in the post-apocalyptic future is characterised by IGN as the pair. Fans of the show’s evolution should not be surprised by these new characters and alterations to the original 2013 game’s plot, which is set to be a retelling of the tale with some modifications. Bella Ramsey, who will play Ellie opposite Padro Pascal’s Joel in the series’ first season, has said that the show would “explore various roads” while also honouring the games’ original work and hitting the series big emotional beats. It was Tom Holland who starred in Sony’s last video game film adaptation, Uncharted, in which he took on the role of series protagonist Nathan Drake while Mark Wahlberg played Victor Sullivan, a trusted friend and mentor. Sony is planning a slew of movie adaptations based on its popular video game IPs, including these two.
The Last of Us and Uncharted director Chad Stahelski’s Ghost of Tsushima film and Peacock’s Twisted Metal series join The Last of Us and Uncharted in the company’s plans to adopt ten of its games for TV and film, which were first disclosed at a corporate strategy conference in May 2021. Woodard, Greene and Miles join Ramsey and Pascal on the cast of the next series, which also includes Gabriel Luna as Joel’s younger brother and a former soldier and Storm Reid as Riley, Ellie’s close friend from before she met Joel.
The cast will also include Nick Offerman, Anna Torv, Merle Dandrige, Nico Parker, Gabriel Luna, Jeffrey Pierce, and Murray Bartlett. There will also be a series adaptation of the original game’s voice actors Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, and Jeffrey Pierce. Neil Druckmann is the series’ creator while Craig Mazin serves as the showrunner. The series is a collaboration between Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions with Naughty Dog and Word Games. In 2023, HBO and HBO Max are slated to air The Last of Us.