The Last of Us: Original Joel Actor Troy Baker Suggested a Marvel Star for TV Role

The fourth episode of The Last of Us is debuting on HBO tonight, so be sure to check out the latest episode of The Last of Pods after the episode airs. The new podcast sees ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis teaming up with ET's Ash Crossan as they talk about the new hit series. Tonight's episode of the podcast features a very special guest, Troy Baker, who played the original Joel Miller. Baker first played the character in The Last of Us video game in 2013, and now the role is being portrayed by Pedro Pascal in the live-action series. During Baker's chat with The Last of Pods, he revealed that he originally suggested Marel star Josh Brolin for the role of Joel.

"Yeah," Baker replied when asked if he was ever in conversations to play the role of Joel in live-action. "I mean, the conversations are always popping up, and the thing that I really respect about Neil [Druckmann] is he was always focused. Still, to this day, he's always focused on the thing that is in front of him, and there's the tertiary conversation of, 'What does this look like if we do this? And maybe I could do this,' but even when we were shooting the first game, it was, 'Well, we got to set this up for a franchise. Come on, let's squeeze this out for three games,' and he goes, 'I have to act like this is the only game we're going to make,' and I was like, 'People are going to be with this ending, dude. They're going to riot with this ending,' and he goes, 'Good.' I just don't want them to be ambivalent. If they hate it, fine, if they love it, great, but if they don't care, that means we didn't do our job."

Baker continued, "So he's always been focused on the story that he's telling, the one that's in front of him, but when it came to... I mean, Neil was really kind. He's like, who would you want to play Joel? And I mean, I bounced around. I remember we were talking about airport lounges. I've met Josh Brolin a handful of times, and the last time that I saw him was at LAX, and I was like, 'Hey, man, I don't know if you remember this or not; you and I met in New Mexico,' but he was like, 'I do, I do,' and I said, 'There may come a script across your desk, and before you dismiss it either way, just give it a look, because I really think that you'd benefit from playing this character, and it the character would benefit from it being played by you,' and he was like, 'I'll give it a look. What's it called?' And I was like, 'It's called The Last of Us, and it's a feature film right now that's being developed.' He was like, 'Okay, I'll take a look.'

He added, "And what's funny is that I think Josh Brolin would've been a great choice. I think that you look at the character, especially in the game, and you go, 'Yeah, that maps, 100%. Josh Brolin playing that, sure,' but what I love is when you get someone like Craig Mazin involved, and these conversations between he and Neil Druckmann go back and forth, and goes, 'What happens if we shake it up a little bit? And who do we get that can not only bring something new to it, and something fresh to it, but also kind of change the character a little bit? We have an opportunity to do things differently here,' and the second that Neil said, 'I think we got Pedro Pascal,' I went, 'Oh. Oh, my God, that's perfect. It's perfect,' because first of all, he's an incredibly talented actor, and secondly, everybody loves him."

What Will Happen in The Last of Us Episode 4? 

The Last of Us' fourth episode will see Joel and Ellie ending up in Kansas City, Missouri. The duo is expected to find themselves in the crosshairs of Kathleen, who is played by Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey. HBO describes her character as "the ruthless leader of a revolutionary movement." Kathleen is an original character created by showrunner and writer Craig Mazin, who expanded upon and deviated from the source material with an entirely new story for Bill and Frank in Episode 3. Kathleen's faction is inspired by the video game's territorial Hunters, named for hunting "tourists" who trespass in the former Pittsburgh QZ.

Be sure to tune into The Last of Pods tonight after the fourth episode of The Last of Us.