The Last of Us Season 2 star Kaitlyn Dever shares her thoughts on the controversy surrounding her character, Abby. While at the 2025 SXSW Festival, the actress spoke with Screen Rant and opened up about the backlash video game The Last of Us Part II received when it was released back in June 2020. While acknowledging that it was difficult for her to not notice the intense reactions gamers had to Abby, Dever stressed that her focus was on working closely with Last of Us showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann to ensure her performance was as strong as it can be.
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Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us Part II follow
“Well, it’s hard not to see those things on the internet. It’s hard not to stop myself from looking at it every once in a while, especially going into this, for sure,” Dever said. “And I want to do this character justice and make the fans proud by bringing her to life in this kind of way. But my main focus was just the collaboration between Neil and Craig, and making sure I was really getting to the core of who she is and what drives her and her emotional state; her anger and her frustration and her grief and all of that. I wanted to make sure that that was what I was focusing most of my energy on.”
Early on in The Last of Us Part II, Abby kills Joel Miller. It’s established later in the game that she was the daughter of one of the Firefly doctors Joel murdered at the end of The Last of Us when he rescued Ellie, leading her on a quest for revenge. While The Last of Us Part II earned critical acclaim (including winning Game of the Year at the 2020 Game Awards), the title received immense backlash for its storytelling. Not only were players upset over Joel’s shocking death, there was also controversy over the fact Abby is the playable character in the game’s second half, forcing gamers to experience things from her perspective as she embarks on her own journey.
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Isabela Merced, who plays Dina in The Last of Us Season 2, stated that during production, Dever needed extra security because “there are people that genuinely hate Abby.” Dever later debunked that claim.
While there will be some notable differences from the source material in The Last of Us Season 2 (see: Joe Pantoliano’s Eugene), the TV show isn’t going to change something as significant as Joel’s death. Considering how beloved Joel and Ellie’s dynamic is, viewers will undoubtedly have strong reactions whenever this tragedy transpires on the series. Hopefully, Dever won’t receive any death threats, which is what happened to Laura Bailey (who played Abby in the video game). It’s one thing for fans to hate a character because of their actions, it’s something else entirely for that hatred to extend to personal attacks. Fortunately, Dever appears to be in the right frame of mind as The Last of Us gears up for its return this April. She doesn’t have any control over viewer reactions, so she concentrated on what she could control: her performance. It’ll be interesting to see her interpretation of Abby and how it honors what came before.
While the overarching narrative beats involving Abby will probably stay the same, there will be some differences between the game and show versions. Dever’s iteration is not going to be as muscular as Abby was in the video game, a decision Druckmann and Mazin made since the story is being adapted into a different medium. On the show, the focus is more on the character drama as opposed to moment to moment action that carries a video game. Throughout her career, Dever has demonstrated the range and skill to portray a variety of characters, so she should have a compelling turn as the vengeful yet vulnerable Abby in The Last of Us.
