Merle Dandridge to reprise her role as Marlene in The Last of Us TV show
Glow up.
Merle Dandridge will reprise her role as Marlene in the TV show based on Naughty Dog's The Last of Us. The Hollywood Reporter revealed the casting.
Marlene is the boss of the Fireflies, the resistance movement who fights for freedom against the military. She appeared in both The Last of Us games.
Dandridge joins Pedro Pascal (Joel) and Bella Ramsey (Ellie) on the cast of HBO's upcoming show. Gabriel Luna plays Tommy, Joel's younger brother. As already announced, Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann are writing the script for the series.
Dandridge has played a raft of video game characters over the years, including Alyx Vance from Half-Life, Kate Collins in Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, and Evelyn in Uncharted 4. She has also had recurring roles on TV shows Sons of Anarchy, The Night Shift, and The Flight Attendant.
In March, Druckmann said HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us will at times "deviate greatly" from the game. In an interview with IGN, Druckmann confirmed that while some of the dialogue will be lifted directly from the first game, it was more important to secure "the philosophical underpinnings of the story" than worry about details such as "should [a character] wear the same plaid shirt or the same red shirt".
"That's way less important to us than getting the core of who these people are and the core of their journey," he said.
The Last of Us TV show does not yet have a release date.