- "The Last of Us" cocreator Craig Mazin said Pedro Pascal almost turned down the role of Joel Miller.
- On the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, he said that Matthew McConaughey was then eyed for the part.
It's hard to imagine anyone else but Pedro Pascal in the role of Joel Miller in the live-action adaptation of the hit video game, "The Last of Us," but it turns out that HBO almost cast another actor in the role.
Appearing on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast this week, series cocreator Craig Mazin addressed the rumors that early into development of the show in 2020, "True Detective" stars Matthew McConaughey and Mahershala Ali were being eyed for the role.
While Mazin clarified that he "actually never talked to Mahershala," who is heading up Marvel's "Blade" reboot, he said that he did consider McConaughey before Pascal accepted the role.
"I did talk to Matthew," he said. "I can't say that it was serious, it was more of just like, 'Hey, here's something we can talk about.'"
However, Mazin, who serves as showrunner alongside the video game creator Neil Druckmann, said that "Pedro was on our list from the start."
"It's one of those things where I'm sure there's an alternate universe where it's a different guy," he said. "Look, Matthew McConaughey is an amazing actor, I'm sure it would've been great, but it would've been different and I like the one that we made."
Still, Mazin and Druckmann nearly had to go with one of their backups and they were initially told that the Chilean-American actor didn't have an opening to take the role.
"We were told he was unavailable, and then as we were floundering about a little bit, I got a call from his agent who said, 'You know, he actually might be available,'" Mazin said.
Mazin said that after that, getting Pascal to say yes to the project took no effort at all.
"Normally when you send scripts to actors like this, you're lucky if you get a read within a month," he said. "He was in England at the time working a movie and I thought between the movie and the time change, this will be forever."
Mazin said that he was pleasantly surprised at just how fast Pascal's agents responded. "I sent it on a Friday. Saturday morning I get a call: 'He loves it. He wants to get a Zoom.'"
Mazin described the first meeting they had together as "the most wonderful Zoom I've ever had. Just love at first sight, and he was just so immediately insightful."
Mazin said he even warned Pascal about the demands of the role, which included shooting across the western Canadian province of Alberta for 11 months. "He was just so taken with the scripts," Mazin said.
In April, Pascal spoke to Insider about taking on the role of the hardened survivor who treks across a pandemic-ravaged America with Ellie (Bella Ramsey), and described it as "really wonderful."
"It was incredibly challenging, but it was more fun than anything else because of how delicious the scripts are, the characters, the creators, the team, putting it all together, the locations, the cultural environment of being in Canada and having a Canadian crew and all of these elements that fell into line with one another," Pascal said.