Hugh Jackman as Joel? New art imagines The Last of Us fan casting

New art reveals what The Last of Us series would look like if fan casting came true

• New AI images have revealed how different The Last of Us series would look if producers cast the actors that fans wanted to portray the main characters
• Hugh Jackman takes on the role of Joel, Ellie is played by Kaitlyn Dever, late actress Annie Wersching portrays Tess, and W. Earl Brown is Bill
• The images also imagine what Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams could look like as Ellie, as she previously met with producers for the role

New images imagine how different The Last of Us series would look if producers cast the actors that fan’s put forward for the role – with Hugh Jackman taking the lead. 

The images, created by Japanese casino 6takarakuji, imagines how IMDb’s dream cast – as voted for by fans –  for the highly popular HBO TV series would actually look in action.

According to the fan choices, the top pick for the series lead Joel Miller is Hugh Jackman (54), who’d be a good fit for the supposedly 56-year old character (in the 2023 timeline) – with fans online pointing out that he’s already portrayed a similar role in Logan (2017). 

He paints a striking figure donning the iconic jacket (even if it is the wrong colour) and carrying a huge gun – but many will say now that there’s no better Joel than Pedro Pascal. 

Other actors that fans put forward for Joel were Josh Brolin (Deadpool, Avengers: Infinity War, No Country for Old Men) and Gerard Butler (300, The Phantom of the Opera).

Fans were more divided when it came to casting Ellie Williams, with equal enthusiasm shown for Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever and Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams.

Although Kaitlyn is considerably older than Ellie (14) at 26 years old, the AI has seemingly aged her down to suit the storyline. It’s also opted to make her hair notably redder than in the TV show, perhaps taking inspiration from the video game series instead.

Real-life Ellie actress Bella Ramsey (19) is also slightly older than the on-screen character and although there was initial backlash to her casting, she’s a perfect fit for the role.

The AI also imagined what Maisie Williams could look like were she to take on the role of Ellie, even though she is also slightly too old to accurately portray the character at 25. 

In fact, Maisie was reportedly in talks to play Ellie when The Last of Us TV series was first conceived in 2014, back when she was 15. Speaking on whether she’d been keen to play the part, she said: “There’s no script, no director, it’s still very early days for the whole project, but if it all goes ahead soon enough I think, yeah, I would love to.”

Ultimately it didn’t go ahead, but if it had, the AI rendering gives us an insight into what Ellie could have looked like. It’s given her some slightly more tamed tresses than in the video game and she seems to be wearing some fetching earrings, but generally she’s a good fit.

Main characters aside, the images also imagine how different the supporting characters would look – with actresses put forward for Tess Servopoulos including Keri Russell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix).

However, it’s The Last of Us voice actress and ‘original Tess’ Annie Wersching that’s reimagined in the role, which was actually played by Anna Torv. 

In the HBO series, Theresa ‘Tess’ Servopoulos forms a partnership with Joel and begins sharing an apartment, using her spare time to take on outside work duty to earn ration cards from the military. She goes on to form a strong bond with Frank and partner Bill. 

She looks remarkably put together for a post-apocalyptic world, and has also opted for a more redder tinge in her hair, similar to Kaitlyn Dever’s Ellie. 

Unfortunately, Annie Wersching passed away at the end of January, but we felt she still deserved to be included in the fan casting, as The Last of Us players considered her to be the OG Tess, and she portrayed the voice role perfectly.

Rounding out the reimagined The Last of Us characters is W. Earl Brown (Deadwood, Preacher) as fan favourite Bill, expertly portrayed as Nick Offerman in the HBO series.

The series follows the tale of Bill, who is isolated on his own after hiding from the military, before eventually meeting Frank after one of his traps was triggered. Frank and Bill form a strong alliance and partnership, and go on to take care of one another in their old age.

Other fan picks for Bill were Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead, Army of Darkness) and Mark Boone Junior (Batman Begins, 30 Days of Night, 2 Fast 2 Furious).

Of course, there’s no Bill without Frank, but according to IMDb, fans had no strong feelings about who’d be best to take on his role – meaning Murray Bartlett has no competition. 

Speaking on the images, 6takarakuji said: “The most interesting thing about this art is that it proposes a new application for AI, as casting directors could use generated images as a basis for selecting their ideal cast – particularly for characters in a game-to-film adaptation. 

“Part of the success of The Last of Us series is that the cast is amazing, even despite the initial backlash. However, it’s fun to see what fan casts look like ‘in real life’ nonetheless.”

The fan cast was originally put forward for the rumoured Sam Raimi-directed The Last of Us film adaptation, which was later scrapped in favour of a TV series – which broke records as HBO’s second-largest debut for an original series since 2010.

Images created via Deep Dream Generator using prompts ‘[actor/actress] as [character] from The Last of Us’. Fan cast as reported by IMDb.  

Credit to 6takarakuji.com who provided the above post.