Merle Dandridge to reprise her role as Marlene in The Last of Us HBO series

The actress who lent her voice to both of The video games will appear in the live action The Last of Us series.

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HBO is currently in pre-production on its live action The Last of Us television series. Not much is known about the show, other than it will follow the story of the beloved game. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are set to star as Joel and Ellie, respectively, and now we know one more actor that will be joining them on this endeavor. Merle Dandridge, who provided the voice for Marlene in both video games, will reprise her role in The Last of Us series.

This news comes out of an exclusive report made by The Hollywood Reporter. Dandridge’s casting is the fourth we’ve gotten so far, as it was also recently revealed that Diego Luna will play the role of Tommy in the show. HBO is yet to publicly confirm the news, and it hasn’t been revealed just how big of a role the character will have in the series.

Marlene is the leader of the Fireflies, an organization whose presence looms heavily over both of The Last of Us games. Consequently, Marlene is a very integral character to the story of Joel and Ellie. Merle Dandridge played Marlene in both The Last of Us and its 2020 sequel. It’s incredibly rare that a voice actor gets to play the same character in live action. That said, this casting makes sense, as Dandridge has appeared in plenty of live action projects.

HBO has kept its lips sealed on details surrounding its The Last of Us series, but we’re slowly starting to get an idea of what the show will look like. We now know four of the cast members, which includes Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal. The show is being written by game writer Neil Druckmann in collaboration with Craig Mazin. We’ll continue to keep you updated on any future news on HBO’s The Last of Us series.

News Editor

Donovan is a young journalist from Maryland, who likes to game. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge Scream nerd and film fanatic that will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

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