Pedro Pascal Praises 'The Last of Us' Costar Bella Ramsey: 'They Brought Out the Best of Me'

The Last of Us stars, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, have nothing but adoration for each other, on and off the screen.

In a recent segment of Variety’s Actors on Actors with Steven Yeun, Pascal— who plays Joel — spoke highly of Ramsey, who costars alongside him as Ellie in the acclaimed HBO series.

Pascal, 48, admitted that it seemed daunting at first to work on such an intense project with 19-year-old Ramsey, who was only 17 when they first began shooting.

“How scary it was to know that you were going into an experience that was 12 months away from home — with a teenager,” he told Yeun.

But, Pascal quickly added, he could also instantly tell that Ramsey was “cool.” 

“I couldn’t have asked for a more anchoring, generous, thoughtful teenager. And I don’t mean to say that in a patronizing way,” he shared. “I relied on Bella for so much of the experience. We were both scared and shy about that, but Bella just inspired me to be mature about it.”

“I really don’t think I’ve met anybody like Bella,” The Mandalorian star continued. “They brought the best out of me as a person.”

The Last of Us is an adaptation of the 2013 Naughty Dog video game of the same name. The series takes place during a post-apocalyptic U.S. plagued by a fungal infection that causes people to transform into zombie-like creatures. Joel is tasked with escorting Ellie, who is immune, across the country in hopes that she can be the cure. Although they initially get off to a rocky start, the two characters gradually form a close father-daughter-like relationship.

Ramsey told GameRant.com that their relationship with Pascal was actually a “nice parallel” to Ellie’s relationship with Joel, explaining that the two of them didn’t even get a chance to meet before they began filming the series. (Both stars were on Game of Thrones, but Pascal's character, Oberyn Martell, was killed off before Ramsey joined two seasons later.)

“We were very much just thrown in,” Ramsey explained. “And that chemistry was just there immediately and just grew and developed as Joel and Ellie's did. As their relationship developed so did ours.” 

“And I think that was a very nice parallel and, yeah, maybe it was intentional on Neil and Craig's [the creators of the show] behalf,” they continued. “To not give us time to, like, meet and bond. I think it worked really well."

"It's true, it was very parallel in terms of, like, getting to know each other by stepping onto the set at the same time and getting in front of the camera and getting the story,” Pascal agreed. “And our shyness with one another and invented expectations of one another just faded away."

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All episodes of The Last of Us season 1 are now available to stream on Max.