‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Has Cast a Mystery Actor as Ripped, Revenge-Seeking Abby

A major role for The Last of Us season two has already been cast, but showrunner Craig Mazin is keeping his secrets locked away — so it’s time once again for some casting speculation and good, old-fashioned queer yearning.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last month, Mazin confirmed that the role of Abby, one of the two protagonists of the original Last of Us Part II video game, has been filled. But because of the Hollywood strikes, which Mazin said “stopped us in our tracks,” nothing more will be known for the immediate future.

“Abby was the first role that we wanted to tackle,” Mazin told THR. “We’ve got a pretty good track record of making major cast announcements and people going, ‘Really?’ which will probably continue. So people may disagree, but I think we got it right so far and the audience seems to feel we got it right and the Academy seems to feel we got it right.” (With 24 Emmy nods for The Last of Us’ first season, which brought us gems like Nick Offerman’s gay romance and every scene featuring Bella Ramsey, that’s something of an understatement.) 

After Mazin’s comments about Abby to THR — and, more recently, the Los Angeles Times — began circulating more widely, fan speculation about the role of Abby has only intensified. In the game, Abby serves as both a deuteragonist and an antagonist, doggedly seeking revenge against the first game’s hero Joel. One of the leading names in the rumor mill is The Wilds’ Shannon Berry, who according to prolific Hollywood leaker MyTimeToShineHello has been cast in the role. As PinkNews noted, series co-creator Neil Druckmann follows Berry on Instagram and Berry recently followed the show’s stars, Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, along with Druckmann, and the show’s official account. This has all led to widespread speculation that Berry already had an “in.”

But many LGBTQ+ viewers are also solidly behind Katy O’Brian, who most recently played Officer Elia Kane on The Mandalorian and has a physique perfect for Abby’s ripped-as-hell musculature. Although O’Brian and her wife stated back in March that she couldn’t get an audition for The Last of Us at all, Mazin also said as of June that Abby had still not been cast — meaning in the two-month interim, O’Brian may have found her way in the door. Listen, look at her Insta and tell us we don’t deserve this casting.