Jeffrey Pierce, the actor who voiced Joel’s brother, Tommy, in The Last of Us will be joining the HBO series adaptation as a different brand new character, alongside Con O’Neill as Bill and Murray Bartlett as his partner Frank. Along with his aforementioned role in The Last of Us game, Pierce has starred in numerous other games and series including Call of Duty: WWII as well as 2019’s Love, Death & Robots.
The three join other popular actors Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, and Gabriel Luna as Tommy in HBO’s upcoming series adaptation, with Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann producing. The creator stated that the series will be “pretty close” to the game’s story, but will also “deviate greatly” in other ways in order to capture the philosophical underpinnings of the series.
Earlier this month, Nico Parker was cast as Joel’s daughter Sarah. Before that, HBO also revealed that Marlene’s voice actor Merle Dandridge would reprise the role. Unfortunately for Pierce, however, the role of Tommy is going to Narcos star Gabriel Luna. Instead, Pierce will play a new character named Perry, who did not appear in the original game.
Murray Bartlett and Con O’Neill are also veteran actors involved in various television series in the past. Murray Bartlett, for example, played Paul Edmonds in Marvel’s Iron Fist in 2018. O’Neill played Viktor Bryukhanov in the TV miniseries Chernobyl, which The Last of Us TV series co-creator Craig Mazin also worked on. Interestingly, O’Neill also voiced Titchy Gren in FromSoftware’s Dark Souls II.
While Pierce will only appear in the first episode of the series, both Bartlett and O’Neill will reportedly appear in every episode of Season 1. This means that fans will likely get to see plenty of Bill and Frank banter, considering the characters—who were partners in the vaguest sense—weren’t on the best of terms in The Last of Us.
The Last of Us HBO series is currently filming, and does not have a release date at this time.
[Source: Deadline]
