The Last of Us has also wreaked emotional havoc on the cast’s respective family members.
The HBO series — based on the Naughty Dog video game of the same name — premiered in January 2023, introducing viewers to the dynamic pair of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey).
Pascal, admittedly, had no idea about the video game until after he took on the role. However, his nephews had an incredible reaction when hearing that their family member would be Joel.
“I didn’t know about the game before I got the job. Then I got the job, and found out very quickly about the game,” he said on The Graham Norton Show in March 2023. “It needed to be explained to me.”
Pedro Pascal Breaks Silence After Joel’s Death in ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2
After nabbing the role, Pascal called his sister Javiera Balmeceda, who is a mother of two teenage boys, Bruno and Pedro.
“I was on speaker when she answered. She was dropping them off at school,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Well there’s this job offer … or opportunity that is based on a video game.’ They’re like, ‘What is it?’”
He remembered them yelling “you better get that job,” when hearing which game it was.
Pascal’s nephews aren’t the only ones who’ve had some thoughts about the show. Keep scrolling for more:
Gabriel Luna
Luna plays Tommy on The Last of Us and while he’s become a fan favorite among viewers, the actor’s 92-year-old grandmother was not impressed by the season 2 premiere.
“I flew my mom, my 92-year-old grandmother, my baby sister and my cousin into Los Angeles for the premiere of the show a couple of weeks ago,” Luna recalled during an April 2025 appearance on Virgin Radio UK. “We were watching the screening and there’s this very intense moment in the first episode, and I was like, ‘God, I hope she’s OK, it’s so loud and violent.’ I turned to my grandmother, just completely knocked out, totally asleep.”
Kaitlyn Dever Recalls Shooting ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 After Mom’s Death
Kaitlyn Dever
Dever made her The Last of Us debut as Abby during season 2. She told Variety in March 2025 that she played the video game with her dad.
“It’s such a cool thing to get to share this with my dad,” she said. “It was a very cool bonding experience between the two of us because we played the first game together and then I played the second game with him up until we started playing Abby and I, kind of, bailed because that game is long and I’m a bad gamer.”
Dever continued, “He was really excited when I got the call about playing Abby. It’s always going to be cool to share stuff with my family but particularly this, it’s a real joy to get to share that with him.”
Pedro Pascal
Pascal joked about his nephew’s reaction to his role as Joel in a separate March 2023 interview with IGN, joking that they “turned into demons” after finding out.
After his onscreen death in April 2025, the actor’s sister Lux Pascal said she “wanted to throw the iPad” she was watching on and “burst into tears.”
“I knew how that episode would end. I knew what was going to happen,” she admitted to Remezcla. “It’s not the first time he’s done it to me. … How many deaths has he had? Game of Thrones, Equalizer 2, The Last of Us — each is more violent than the other. … Seeing my brother die that way, I didn’t like it at all.”
