Kaitlyn Dever, who stars in season 2 of The Last of Us, may not have the physique of a pro wrestler, but she’s bulked-up where it counts: her talent. Dever benching 300, emotionally. She’s swole-hearted.
After the latest episode of HBO’s sci-fi hit, based on the critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic video game, a handful of viewers questioned whether Dever was the right person for the role of Abby, a character who is large and physically threatening in the game. “She supposed to be able to kill dudes with her bare hands. The TV version would get tossed around” wrote one viewer on X.
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Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, and we’re certainly not opposed to more big-armed women on television, but for anyone complaining that Dever isn’t “built like a [large, sturdy object],” please note that the showrunners, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, have actually already addressed this.
In February 2025, Druckmann, who also co-wrote the original game, told Entertainment Weekly, “We would’ve struggled to find someone as good as Kaitlyn to play this role…Kaitlyn has the spirit of the game in her…When you look at Kaitlyn, there’s just something in her eyes where, even no matter what she’s experiencing, you connect. It was important that we found somebody that we could connect to the way we connect to [series star] Bella [Ramsey].”
Added Mazin, “I personally think that there is an amazing opportunity here to delve into someone who is perhaps physically more vulnerable than the Abby in the game, but whose spirit is stronger. And then the question is, ‘Where does her formidable nature come from and how does it manifest?’ That’s something that will be explored now and later.”
While the posts on X are mostly light-hearted “wish she’d been a linebacker!” type sentiments, the comments on the EW article are weirdly aggressive. I won’t quote them here but there’s a good amount of “here’s who you should have cast, idiots” and asking Kaitlyn Dever to suck down protein shakes. Add that to the fact that Abby’s role is deeply divisive, which Dever is well aware of, and you can understand why Vice published an article begging people not to start a hate campaign against the actor. There are already people on Dever’s Instagram warning one another not to go overboard, praying the TV community isn’t as toxic as the gamer community (it would be hard to get worse!) or just advising her to preemptively shut off her comments.
Crazy idea: what if everyone was just cool about this?
The post The Last of Us Showrunner Responds to the Kaitlyn Dever Casting Uproar appeared first on Glamour.
