Storm Reid Cast as Riley Abel in HBO Max's THE LAST OF US Series
Storm Reid, who is best known for her roles in Euphoria and A Wrinkle in Time, has joined the cast of HBO Max’s series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us. She will be taking on the role of Riley Abel, an orphaned girl growing up in post-apocalyptic Boston. She accompanies and survives with her best friend Ellie before she meets Joel.
Reid joins Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Anna Torv, TLOU voice actress Merle Dandrige, Nick Offerman, Nico Parker, Gabriel Luna, Jeffrey Pierce and Murray Bartlett.
The Last of Us takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed by a deadly virus. Joel (Pascal), a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie (Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone to the Fireflies, a cure-searching organization. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
Luna plays Tommy, Joel’s younger brother, “a former soldier who hasn’t lost his sense of idealism and hope for a better world.” Dandridge is set to take on the role of Marlene in the series, the head of the Fireflies, “a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime.” Offerman will take on the role of the character Bill and star alongside Murray Bartlett as Frank, two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town.
Craig Mazin, the creator of HBO’s acclaimed limited series Chernobyl, wrote the series and is also executive producing with Neil Druckmann, who is the writer and creative director of the game. Druckmann is also set to direct an episode of the series.
HBO is “aiming for a serious dramatic tone for the adaptation.” The rest of the production team includes Carolynn Strauss (Chernobyl) and Carter Swan along with Evan Wells of Naughty Dog and Asad Qizilbash from PlayStation Productions. Kantemir Balagov is directing the pilot episode of The Last Of Us.
Source: Deadline