The Last Of Us Creators Respond To The Biggest Live-Action Abby Complaint

With "The Last of Us" Season 2 on the horizon, the show's head creatives have addressed one of the biggest complaints many fans already have: why isn't Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) super-ripped? In the video game "The Last of Us Part II," the character was someone who had been training for years to exact her revenge on Joel (Pedro Pascal in the series) for his actions in the first game (and, as such, the show's Season 1 finale). Dever's Abby, on the other hand, doesn't look nearly as physically intimidating in the trailers and promos unveiled so far.

As it turns out, there's a reason for that. "In the game, you have to play both characters [Ellie and Abby] and we need them to play differently," as Neil Druckmann — who co-created the "Last of Us" video games and serves as a co-showrunner on the series — explained to Entertainment Weekly. "We needed Ellie to feel smaller and kind of maneuver around, and Abby was meant to play more like Joel in that she's almost like a brute in the way she can physically manhandle certain things. There's not as much violent action moment to moment."

"[The show's] more about the drama. I'm not saying there's no action here. It's just, again, different priorities and how you approach it," he added.

Those who watched "The Last of Us" Season 1 should already understand what he means. The series' first season cut a majority of the action sequences from the first game, zeroing in on its story's most emotional interpersonal moments instead. The result was a TV series where Joel and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) don't kill nearly as many clickers, nor do they take out as many humans as they did in the first game's winter portion. Season 1 understood that the constant action sequences that made the game so fun don't translate as well to the medium of TV, and responded accordingly. That's part of why the most important quality Dever needed to play Abby, the showrunners argue, was her personality, not her physicality.

"Kaitlyn has the spirit of the game in her," Druckmann stated. "When you look at Kaitlyn, there's just something in her eyes where, even no matter what she's experiencing, you connect. It was important that we found somebody that we could connect to the way we connect to Bella."

Co-creator and showrunner Craig Mazin also shared his thoughts on Dever's Abby with EW, stating:

"I personally think that there is an amazing opportunity here to delve into someone who is perhaps physically more vulnerable than the Abby in the game, but whose spirit is stronger. And then the question is, 'Where does her formidable nature come from and how does it manifest?' That's something that will be explored now and later."

The fandom debate around Dever's casting feels especially familiar because, back in Season 1, fans had a lot of the same arguments over Bella Ramsey. Ramsey doesn't look much like the video game version of Ellie, but she still gave a great, critically-acclaimed performance in Season 1 anyway. Turns out, there's a lot more to capturing a character than just the actor's physical features, and the show's creators didn't forget that lesson heading into Season 2. Ramsey undeniably captured the vibe of video game Ellie, and hopefully Dever can accomplish the same. As Druckmann put it:

"We need someone to really capture the essence of those characters [...] We don't value as much, 'Do they look exactly like the character with their eyebrows or their nose or their body?' Whatever it is. It's not nowhere on the priority list, but it's below a bunch of other things that we consider."

Abbie, unlike Ellie, is also a pretty divisive character among "Last of Us" fans, which only makes her casting for the TV adaptation that much more contentious. It'll be an even bigger uphill battle for Dever to win over fans' approval, but the showrunners seem confident she can manage that feat.

"The Last of Us" Season 2 is slated to premiere April 2025 on HBO.