‘The Last Of Us’ Won’t Be Stealing Another ‘Mandalorian’ Actor To Play Abby

After The Mandalorian aired this week, I found someone in my mentions asking me what I thought about Katy O’Brian potentially playing Abby in The Last of Us season 2.

My first thought was “who is Katy O’Brian?” then I realized that she was playing Office Kane in The Mandalorian, but I still wasn’t getting the connection to Abby.

Then I realized that she had also just played the Quantum Realm warrior Jentorra in the new Ant-Man movie. Okay, I kind of get it now.

Then I saw her Instagram:

Yeah alright, I’m really starting to be convinced now. I prepared to write an article that it was possible that The Last of Us could steal its second Mandalorian actor to play Abby in the form of O’Brian, when previously they took Pedro Pascal to play the lead, Joel, which delayed Mandalorian season 3 itself until now, given his dual filming roles which are going to continue for a little longer.

Abby is a famously jacked main character from The Last of Us Part 2, with her physicality a significant part of her persona. Her appearance, modeled on crossfitter Colleen Fotsch, sparked a lot of (very annoying) debates when Part 2 was released, and here we have O’Brian, who very well might be the most yoked actress I’ve seen who wasn’t originally a WWE star or UFC fighter. And maybe even more so than those. With roles in Mando and an MCU movie, could this be her next step?

Well, it turns out…no. As I kept researching this, I found that O’Brian had already addressed this issue a few days ago, saying that she attempted to try to get an audition for The Last of Us, but couldn’t:

While she doesn’t explicitly say she was auditioning for Abby, I mean, it’s implied. And then O’Brian’s wife also says in that quote tweet that she believes the role people are lobbying for (Abby) has already been cast. Given that season 2 of The Last of Us may start filming by the end of this year, that certainly seems possible.

The running theory has always been that The Wilds actress Shannon Berry might already have the part, as her face makes her a dead ringer for game Abby, and she’s followed on Instagram by Neil Druckmann. But nothing has been announced, and I would not be shocked if Abby ended up being someone no one has considered yet.

It remains to be seen how “faithful” to the game the show needs Abby to be. Does her face have to look identical? Because Bella Ramsey does not look like game Ellie, and her casting was more about capturing her personality instead. Does Abby have to be O’Brian-level jacked? Or is there some middleground for the physicality? One main issue with O’Brian’s potential casting is that she’s 30, opposite Ramsey, a 19 year old currently playing 14, when Abby is supposed to be much closer to Ellie’s age.

So, this does not appear to be happening, even if her career trajectory and biceps might indicate that in another world O’Brian could have been a contender for this part. We’ll see who they end up going with instead.

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