Is Bella Ramsay going to be Recast in The Last of Us Season 2?

Fans of The Last of Us franchise had many follow-up questions for the series producers and writers following the immense success of the video-game inspired HBO show: Will we have another season? Is the story being followed? When can we expect further details? And, most particularly, is the beloved cast being kept for the later story arcs, which contain a 5-year jump?

The show, which aired its season finale this past Sunday (12), breaking record viewership even though it aired on the same day as the Oscars, has already confirmed a second season, with a third season even rumored to supposedly be on its way as well for production. Considering the fidelity to the original work the show retained in the first season, fans have high expectations for the upcoming seasons to follow that same philosophy, but some questions of a more practical nature remain, such as how they would deal with the time jump.

The Last of Us - Part 2 features a 5-year time jump that sees through the rest of Joel and Ellie's stories. Now grown up in the zombie post-apocalyptic world, the young female protagonist's story progresses as the implications of the season finale catch up to her and Joel. As the story is very focused on these two beloved characters (and now actors!), there was a real concern the producers would make the same mistakes other screen-adaptations did and replace them, or find obstacles when trying to maintain the original cast, such as what happened to Stranger Things when it was time to show an Eleven flashback with a grown-up Millie Bobby Brown in the part.

But fans can rest assured: Bella Ramsey will remain in the role for the second season, writers Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann confirmed in a press interview before the season finale.

Craig Mazin: So, one of the things about the casting process that's tough is that we invite people to join us on this process, and we know everything, and nobody else knows anything, except what they know, which is the game. But we know what we're going to do in terms of costume and makeup and hair, but more importantly, we also know the spirit and soul of the actor. It's tough as a kind of a parent of an actor, because you become kind of a surrogate father on set, especially to someone who, when she joined us, was 17. She's 19 now which, by the way, is the age of Ellie in The Last of Us Part II. People were like, "She doesn't look like the character," and I'm like, "It doesn't matter, just watch what happens. Just watch." And now they know, and I think there is still this constant drumbeat of anxiety. All I can say to people is I have so much anxiety myself about doing a good job on this. I am also very anxious, if you're anxious about something, I'm probably anxious about it, which means we're talking about it and thinking about it. We will present things, but it will be different, it will be different, just as this season was different. Sometimes it will be different radically, and sometimes it will be barely different at all. But it's going to be different, and it will be its own thing. It won't be exactly like the game, it will be the show that Neil and I want to make. We are making it with Bella.

Neil Druckmann: I'll add to that, when we made the game, I felt we were incredibly lucky, it was like lightning in a bottle that we found Ashley Johnson. I can't imagine that version of Ellie being anybody else, and then somehow we got lightning in the bottle again with Bella. We are extremely lucky to have Bella in the stuff you saw throughout this entire season. The only way we would ever ever consider recasting Bella is if she said, "I don't want to work with you guys anymore." Even then, we're not sure we would grant her that, we might still force her to come back. [Laughs]

Considering Ramsey has already been praised by the original actor in the video game, Ashley Johnson, for her outstanding performance as Ellie in the HBO show, despite all the early skeptics that criticized her appearance and age pretty heavily, we can expect to see the actress very soon play a role even closer to her age than 14-year-old Ellie.