Folks who came to HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us as fans of Naughty Dog’s game that served as the source material for the series were undoubtedly thrilled to see Joel’s original actor Troy Baker get some screen time in episode eight of the hit series.
In finally seeing him, another thought may have crossed their minds – this guy was the original Joel, and he’s shown up looking very much like the game’s leading man – so shouldn’t HBO have considered him to bring life to the iconic role he is responsible for?
Granted, if we think of the Troy Baker of 2013, this guy did not look like Joel. In an interview with BuzzFeed, Neil Druckmann commented on the fact that (at the time) he doesn’t look like him, but played the part to perfection. In 2023, this is clearly no longer the case – the actor has gracefully aged up to a point where he could (and does) believably look like Joel.
By no means are we discrediting Pedro Pascal’s performance – from the moment he delivered his heart-wrenching performance in episode one, we were sold on The Mandalorian star filling Troy Baker’s boots. If it had to be anyone else, he was certainly the man for the job. On the show’s official companion podcast, which Baker hosts, the original Joel has even expressed envy about how Pascal tackled certain character moments.
However, after seeing Baker in the flesh during “When We Are In Need,” the question in our minds deviated from “What if?” to “Why not?” Let’s be honest, the resemblance between Baker’s character in the HBO series and his in-game avatar is absolutely uncanny. We know the man’s capable of playing the role, he’s done it before!
It likely ended up being a matter of star power to help draw a brand new (and ever-growing) audience to HBO’s hit series. It may also boil down to chemistry – maybe the onscreen relationship between Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey simply works better. On the subject of Ellie, in that same BuzzFeed interview, Druckmann mentions her original actor, Ashley Johnson, was 27 during the production of The Last of Us game, so bringing her in to reprise her role would be a much tougher ask.
Or, perhaps it ended up being a simple case of Troy Baker being more comfortable in the realm of motion capture, and simply not being interested in reprising his role in live-action. After all, he was approaching other big stars about potentially stepping into his shoes for HBO’s adaptation. We can wonder all we want, but at the end of the day, we still couldn’t have been happier with the end result that landed on our television screens.
The Last of Us will be back for its big finale next Sunday on HBO Max.
