The Last of Us is undoubtedly one of the greatest video games of all time, but the reverence its most diehard fans show the story is something you don’t see a lot these days in the entertainment industry. It’s no wonder, then, that many of them would want to gatekeep the franchise with their dying breath, latching onto even the minutest discrepancy to naysay the forthcoming live-action adaptation by HBO.
In this case, the criticism of Pedro Pascal’s casting more often than not involves his patchy beard, which, according to fans, isn’t even close to Joel’s iconic whiskers. Never mind his acting chops or whether he’s the right choice to portray a character originally embodied by Troy Baker, we want to see some proper facial hair on that gun-toting, brick-throwing protagonist.
You might find the subject too absurd to bring up or pay any attention to, but according to the show’s executive producer Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), this is actually a deal-breaker for a lot of TLOU enthusiasts.
“You’re laughing, but for some people, that’s a serious deal-breaker for them!” He said in a recent interview chat with The Hollywood Reporter. “They’re like, ‘Oh my God, he can’t even have the same beard as Joel in the game.'”
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay wouldn’t have been our go-to choices to portray The Last of Us leads, either, but if the trailers are anything to go by, the pair have truly brought Joel and Ellie to life in a way that might actually end up transcending our ideas of the two characters. They might even offer the story more depth, as blasphemous as that will sound.
At any rate, we officially have less than two weeks until the show makes its debut on HBO platforms. You can expect the first episode to drop on January 15.